May, 2009

With near perfect timing, we have finished Oedipus the King right before I leave for vacation. I'll be back on June 2, when I plan to jump right into the challenging Symposium for a good old love fest.

Now is the chance to get a head start on the book, if you'd like.

Oedipus discovers that the prophecy is true. As if killing your father and having children with your mother wasn't enough torture, he then loses his wife/mother to suicide and blinds himself with the pins that held together her clothes.

His moral blindness is replaced by physical blindness, and in the final lines, he prepares to leave Thebes for good.

How ironic that this master of riddles (he solved the riddle of the Phoenix before the play started) is ruined by another riddle he forces himself to solve instead of living in ignorance.

Oedipus has become so desperate to learn the truth and destroy his family that his behavior is sickening. He tortures and threatens to kill the old herdsman for trying to protect him from the truth.

As we saw in The Odyssey, it seems that the Greek authors try to make those who get punished less sympathetic. Remember Odysseus' gloating when he escaped the Cyclops? He was the hero, but he did deserve some punishment for that behavior.

I don't wish Oedipus' blinding and expulsion from society, but he does have a reprimand coming.

As with so much else we are exposed to, the question of paternity is a vital theme in Oedipus the King.

"What, was Polybus not my father?" (1017) an appalled Oedipus asks the messenger who is helping to seal his doom.

Despite Jocasta's warnings, Oedipus must get to the bottom of this riddle that is painfully revealing itself. The drought plaguing his kingdom and the cure for that plague were forgotten hundreds of lines ago, and now, the true focus of this play is the need to discover one's lineage.

The plot of Oedipus the King is so familiar that new twists as I read come across as redundancies. It's difficult to imagine the shock of hearing for the first time that the prophecy might be true.

I imagine it's like hearing for the first time (sorry for this redundancy) that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father. I was 3 when I went to see that movie, and my father took me several times because I kept crying at the beginning of the ultimate fight scene, moments before that climactic "Luke, I am your father." So I guess I ruined that one, too.

Jocasta enters in such a graceful and queenly way, I feel worst of all for her. Instantly, she puts an end to the bickering between Oedipus and Creon:

"For shame! Why have you raised this foolish squabbling

brawl? Are you not ashamed to air your private

griefs when the country's sick? Go in, you, Oedipus,

and you, too, Creon, into the house. Don't magnify

your nothing troubles." (634-638)

As we plug along through these books, I leap to the keyboard when I come across one of those themes that has never left literature, life, politics, etc.

Oh, Oedipus. It's as if you landed on the deck of an aircraft carrier with a "Drought Ended" sign waiting to great you. Teiresias warned you. He didn't seem to have any other motivation in the matter.

I'm a compulsive reader. I carry a man purse wherever I go so I can have a book with me at all times. I read on the subway. I read during my lunch break. I read sitting under a rack of clothes while my wife shops at Ann Taylor.

But the most enjoyable reading I do is when there is no one in the house, and the shades are opened on the backyard and the only noises are the crackling of the heating system coming to life and the occasional bird beating its wings near the window.