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Pschoanalytic theory of play
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The Oedipus is essentially a tragic analysis. Everything is already there, so it needs only to be extricated. Schiller to Goethe, 1797 We all know that Oedipus killed his father and slept with his mother, and that when he discovered who he had killed and who he had married, he blinded himself. But Sophocles’ tragedy Oedipus Rex does not show us the killing or the wedding. It shows us only the process by which Oedipus discovers “who he is” and it then reports two actions consequent upon that discovery: Oedipus’ mother/wife Jocasta hangs herself and Oedipus stabs out his eyes. In addition to the killing and the marrying, two other less familiar parts of Oedipus’ story form part of the background of Sophocles’ play – Oedipus’ victory over …show more content…
Freud first mentioned Oedipus in 1897, in a letter to his friend Wilhelm Fliess. There he wrote that it had occurred to him that the reason audiences were so stirred by Oedipus Rex is that “the Greek saga seizes upon a compulsion which everyone recognizes because they perceive his existence in themselves. Every member of the audience was once a budding Oedipus in fantasy.” (Hillman, 96) Freud’s focus in that remark is on Oedipal desires and conflicts. But Freud went on to talk about Oedipus in The Interpretation of Dreams, and there he noted that the play proceeds in a manner similar to psychoanalysis: “The action of the play consists simply in the disclosure, approached step by step and artistically delayed (and comparable to the work of a psychoanalysis) that Oedipus himself is the murderer of Laius.” (Hillman, 92) Indeed, as a clinician, it is hard to read Oedipus Rex without being reminded of a psychoanalysis, with Oedipus as the patient. We see Oedipus’ omnipotence and grandiosity, his resistance and denial, his interest in a quick fix and his demand for the answer, his bullying of the seer Tiresias and the old herdsman who knows …show more content…
In the passion of her grief she made fast a noose for herself from the lofty roof-beam; and for Oedipus she left behind such endless woes as a mother’s avenging spirits brings. (134) In the passion of her rageful grief, her grief for Laius, her husband, killed as she now knows by Oedipus, and her rage (we may imagine) the son who has violated her and destroyed the façade of their current life, Jocasta enacts a violence that redounds upon Oedipus. Oedipus runs after her in a rage and breaks down the door to her rooms. But when he sees her dead, he takes her body down gently and stabs his eyes out with the pins that held her gown – pins reminiscent of course of the pins that pierced his ankles. “No more!” he cries to his eyes as he stabs them. “You will look no more at the pain I have suffered, the horrors that are my doing!” In this act, Oedipus takes upon himself not only his own violence but also the violence of his parents toward him, and he becomes the scapegoat for the city. Oedipus the grandiose savior of Thebes had no self apart from the city. Now he assures the Chorus that they need have no fear of touching him, because he is bearing all the guilt himself. Nor does he now have a self apart from his parents’ murderous wishes for him. As scapegoat, his earnest wish is to be expelled from the city. And where does he want to go? To Citheron, the mountain where
At the sight of this event, Oedipus feels immediate and unbearable guilt and blinds himself to the evils he has caused. At this point Oedipus enters the return phase of the initiation and realizes that he must live up to his own decree and banish himself from the city in order to save his people. The third stage, the sacrifice, is symbolized by Oedipus removing himself from the city.
Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex introduced the one of the most important tragic heroes of Greek literature. First performed in the fifth century B.C.E., the play is centered around Oedipus, the king of the Greek city-state Thebes, and his struggle to conquer his emotions as he seeks out the true story of his life. This work, inspired by a well-known Greek myth, scrutinizes both the tragic flaws of Oedipus and his heroism. Examples of Oedipus’ tragic flaws abound in the play. In his condemnation of Tiresias and Creon, Oedipus is controlled by his emotions. However, the heroism of Oedipus is also an essential theme of the drama, though it is often downplayed. Despite this, careful analysis can uncover many instances in which Oedipus exhibits his heroism by attempting to control his emotions and discover the truth of his origins. In his finest moments, Oedipus is in complete command of his emotions as he searches for the truth, while at his nadir, Oedipus is completely controlled by his emotions and is absolutely unpredictable. This contrast is, in large part, what makes Oedipus a tragic hero. Oedipus, King of Thebes, is among the greatest Hellenistic tragic heroes because of his fight to overcome his greatest flaw, his uncontrollable anger, as he heroically searches for the truth.
In the beginning of the text, an explanation is presented of how Thebes must “drive out a killer” in order to purge the city of the plague (99). Oedipus sets on a quest that includes Tiresias’s baffling words. Tiresias confronts Oedipus with [Oedipus’s] truth by revealing he is the murderer of Laius and “pollutes the land” (352). Oedipus is also bound by Apollo’s prophecy; his [Oedipus] fate is sealed (377). Oedipus displays his denial by refusing that he is the murderer and placing the blame on Creon.
In the play Oedipus Rex, Oedipus learns things that make him realize that he is not who he thinks he is. His past is slowly unavailing throughout the play from where he came from to why it happened and he is determined to learn the truth. This play is based on tragedy and some say that Oedipus himself is to be held responsible for what happens to him towards the end. As Oedipus seeks out the truth behind the prophecy going on about killing his father and marrying his mother, Jocasta realizes the truth before Oedipus does and tries to prevent him from pursuing the knowledge.
Oedipus at first finds the implications of killing his father and sleeping with his mother difficult to tolerate as a factual manifestation of his past. He disputes the fact that he had caused suc...
In conclusion, Oedipus’ denial of justice especially to his eyes, Tiresias, and Creon, show that justice is an important theme in this book. Oedipus denies justice by not giving the full representation of the truth, and by hurting and blaming others for things he himself has done. By doing this, he fails to be the fair king he strives to be by trying to track down Laius’ murderer, and becomes the complete antithesis of what he wants to be. If Oedipus wants to be a just king to his people, then he should take the punishment meant for him—death—because it is fair that since he is the source of the corruption of the land, that he should die in return.
The great Sophoclean play, Oedipus Rex is an amazing play, and one of the first of its time to accurately portray the common tragic hero. Written in the time of ancient Greece, Sophocles perfected the use of character flaws in Greek drama with Oedipus Rex. Using Oedipus as his tragic hero, Sophocles’ plays forced the audience to experience a catharsis of emotions. Sophocles showed the play-watchers Oedipus’s life in the beginning as a “privileged, exalted [person] who [earned his] high repute and status by…intelligence.” Then, the great playwright reached in and violently pulled out the audience’s most sorrowful emotions, pity and fear, in showing Oedipus’s “crushing fall” from greatness.
It is the fate of all of us, perhaps, to direct our first sexual impulse towards our mother and our first hatred and our first murderous wish against our father. Our dreams convince us that this is so’’(Freud). The real power of Oedipus The King lies not in the fact that it illustrates the Oedipus complex—that Oedipus was oedipal—but that it depicts a troubling and seemingly universal dimension of human behavior; the way we unwittingly create the fate we fear and abhor. Oedipus, like many of us, falls victim to what he frantically strove to avoid. Readers identify with Oedipus not because they wish to possess one parent and eliminate the other, but because they often end up precisely where they didn’t want to be: a woman who was abused as a child may choose a partner who mistreats her; or the boy who was crushed by his marginal status in his family and unwittingly lives his life so that as an adult he is repeatedly unseen and under appreciated. What Oedipus could teach us is how magnetic the pull is to repeat what we desperately wish to
Oedipus is the main character in the play Oedipus the King. Oedipus is thought of as a tragic figure because he was doomed from birth. Tiresias, an old blind prophet, told Oedipus' parents about Oedipus' fate. He told them that Oedipus would kill his father and sleep with his mother. So, his parents decided to have him killed, only it did not happen that way. He was passed off by two shepherds and finally to the King and Queen of Corinth, Polybus and Merope to raise him as their own. Oedipus finds his way back to Thebes and on the way kills his father, but Oedipus did not know that one of the men he killed was his real father. This is the beginning of the prophecy coming true. In short Oedipus obtains the throne, Marries his mother and has kids with her. Oedipus' fate has come together without him even realizing what is going on. Eventually he is told what has happened and asks to be banished by his uncle/brother-in-law Creon. The tragedy in Oedipus' life began with his birth and the realization by his parents that his whole life was doomed.
The myth of Oedipus is one of a man brought down by forces aligning against him. Over the years, different playwrights have interpreted his character in various fashions. In Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, Oedipus is a man who is blind to the path on which his questions take him and exemplifies the typical tyrannical leader in ancient times; in Senaca’s Oedipus, it is the fear of his questions that give Oedipus a greater depth of character, a depth he must overcome if he is to survive his ordeal.
Oedipus Rex, an ancient Greek tragedy authored by the playwright Sophocles, includes many types of psychological phenomena. Most prominently, the myth is the source of the well-known term Oedipal complex, coined by psychologist Sigmund Freud in the late 1800s. In psychology, “complex” refers to a developmental stage. In this case the stage involves the desire of males, usually ages three to five, to sexually or romantically posses their mother, and the consequential resentment of their fathers. In the play, a prince named Oedipus tries to escape a prophecy that says he will kill his father and marry his mother, and coincidentally saves the Thebes from a monster known as the Sphinx. Having unknowingly killed his true father Laius during his escape, he marries the widowed queen of Thebes, his mother Jocasta. Many events in the story should lead to suspicion of their marriage, but out of pride and ignorance Oedipus stubbornly refuses to accept his fate. Together, these sins represent the highest taboos of Greek society, revealed by Socphocles’s depiction of the already pervasive story. Before the Thebian plays, the myth centered more around Oedipus’s journey of self-awareness; meanwhile, Sophocles shows Oedipus’s struggles with his inevitable desire toward his mother throughout these stages of psychological development.
For Oedipus, prophecy is not the main source of his fall towards society; rather, his hubris blinds himself from recognizing his personal sin in the world, thus leading to his demise. Sophocles even skillfully uses a metaphor through the words “ as led by a guide” to further explain the “supernatural being” that ultimately decides the tragic fate of the family of Oedipus. In addition, through the death of Jocasta, the reader is immediately attuned of Oedipus’ raging moment of violence and will be petrified by the overwhelming power of the gods, thus realizing the importance of being cautious before making a final choice. Indeed, after an individual settles on a decision, the gods take control of the person’s fate, hurling numerous consequences to him if he makes the wrong decision. Moreover, as Oedipus suddenly becomes the unintended victim of the gods through his sinful decision to execute Laius, he is forced to relinquish his predominate impetus for pridefulness in exchange for a heart of deep realization and forgiveness. At the end of the play, Oedipus sacrifices everything in order to remove his guilt through the consequences of his atrocious actions witnessed by the gods. After Oedipus realizes the astringent fate he was destined to encounter through his sinful murder of Laius, he immediately attempts to take responsibility for his
Oedipus’ mother and wife, Jocasta, went through her share of trials. When she was wife to Oedipus’ father, King Laius, Jocasta conceived a baby boy whom she was forced to give up to death. After receiving a prophecy that his son would kill him and take his throne, King Laius convinces Jocasta that their son is a great threat. He then orders that the baby boy be...
Elements of Tragedy in Oedipus Rex It is not the tragic subject matter of the text that is of primary interest but rather the manner in which the plot is developed. The story line progresses as if the reader is "unpeeling an onion. " The tale of King Oedipus is well known. An enraged Oedipus unknowingly slays his father (Laiusq, King of Thebes) and supplants him as monarch and as husband to his own mother (Queen Jocasta).
Oedipus is depicted as a “marionette in the hands of a daemonic power”(pg150), but like all tragic hero’s he fights and struggles against fate even when the odds are against him. His most tragic flaw is his morality, as he struggles between the good and the evil of his life. The good is that he was pitied by the Shepard who saved him from death as a baby. The evil is his fate, where he is to kill his father and marry his mother. His hubris or excessive pride and self-righteousness are the lead causes to his downfall. Oedipus is a tragic hero who suffers the consequences of his immoral actions, and must learn from these mistakes. This Aristotelian theory of tragedy exists today, as an example of what happens when men and women that fall from high positions politically and socially.