Also called "Oedipus Rex"
Whenever there is mention of
Ancient Greek tragedy,
Oedipus Rex is always on top of the list. It might be because of its rather bold idea of a son marrying his mother by accident, or the fact that
Aristotle -ian plots are still relevant today. Most pop culture fiction, including movies today have the notion of a flawed protagonist and a perfect beginning, middle and
climax .
Oedipus Rex is a the first part of the three-part story about the
King of Thebes, by the same name. He was born with a dark cloud: his parents were informed of a dire
prophecy that the baby would set out to kill his father and
marry his mother by accident. His parents, as fearful as any of the sort having traditional Ancient Greek mentality, handed the son to a shepherd to be executed. The shepherd, being too kind-hearted handed the baby to another shepherd of a neighbouring
city, Corinth. The child, ironically was handed to the king of Corinth and reared to be the prince of the city. The young Oedipus then encounters a prophecy saying that he would go on to kill his own father and marry his mother. To escape his fate, he leaves his city to make sure none of the gruesome crimes occur and unknowingly is on the way to his own city, Thebes.
We can all guess what happens next. Oedipus does unknowingly kill his father, he does unknowingly marry his mother and becomes the King of Thebes. All this might be seeming like horrifying plot spoilers, but that is not the point of tragedy. It does not depend on tricks and twists to interest the audience/reader. That trait, however, is essential to
melodrama . The beauty of tragedy is that everyone knows what is going to happen in the end. It is only the self-realisation of the
tragic hero and the path towards it that makes tragic
drama . One of the triumphs of
Oedipus Rex is its clean plot. The course of dialogue, though poetic and monologous, follows a natural course of action. There is the presence of the traditional Chorus for slightly guiding the characters, finger-waggling, expressing the audience reactions and discreetly recapitulating the story. The interesting aspect is the then original idea of a Fated hero, whose attempted escape from a prophecy ironically causes it to be fulfilled.
Every tragic hero was supposed to have a
tragic flaw which in Oedipus' case was his pride. How his pride led to his fall is an interesting story which is the essence of the drama. Apart from enjoyment, it is rather enlightening to discover how it impacted drama and literature throughout history. The concept of an infallible prophecy was an attractive plot device for works such as
Macbeth and
Harry Potter . Although
Oedipus Rex was originally in Greek, simplified English versions can be found on sites such as Wikipedia and Gutenberg. Analysis can be found on SparkNotes.
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