It is difficult for the audience to understand why Oedipus is blind to the truth of his past. When Oedipus first comes to Thebes, he proves himself as an intelligent man, by solving the sphinxes riddle which no-one else could do. Therefore he is acknowledged amongst his countrymen as someone who has great wit and intelligence. However, Oedipus, with all his intelligence cannot see the truth, and does not take heed to the warnings given to him by Treisias. Oedipus is warned that ‘the killer of Laius – that man is here’. Oedipus’ fate is also foretold,
‘He that came seeing, blind shall he go;
Rich now, then a beggar; stick-in-hand, groping his way
To a land of exile’, but he is blinded by pride and does not listen to Teiresias. Given the cleverness Oedipus displayed in solving riddles, the audience struggles to comprehend that Oedipus does not see the truth in Jocasta’s words about the identity of Laius’ killer even when he knew of the prophesy and when obvious clues such as ‘the place where three roads meet’(p45) as to the place where Laius was killed are given. This causes the audience to question whether Oedipus is clever at all, given these failings and therefore on an intellectual level that audience finds it hard to understand his actions.
The audience can relate to Oedipus on an emotional level, but struggles with classifying him, and at different stages in the play, Oedipus is both admired and pitied by the audience. At the start of the play Oedipus is respected and looked up to as the great king of Thebes who saved them from the Sphinx. The audience is shown Oedipus’ many commendable qualities. His devotion to his people is shown in his concern about them as he says
‘I grieve for you, my children…
And while you suffer, no-one suffers more than I’). His strong leadership qualities and his pursuit of the truth are also shown, but as the events of the play unfold, Oedipus’ many flaws are revealed and the audience’s admiration is short lived. Oedipus’ ignorance and pride lead to his own destruction and the admiration is replaced by pity. Even though Oedipus does many things that are horrendous, the audience is still sympathetic towards him, because of his tragic fall from power. The role of fate in his downfall is another element that makes the audience feel sorry for Oedipus. A major focus in the play is the role that fate plays in Oedipus’ life.
Throughout the play the audience judges Oedipus by his actions. The crimes that Oedipus commits break the underlying moral, and therefore are especially hard to deal with. Oedipus did not just murder a man, he murdered his father. His marriage to his mother goes against the moral code. For these reasons the audience approaches the character of Oedipus with very strong and deep negative feelings. No matter how great the pity and how ill-fated his life, the fact of the actions has an impact on the level of sympathy which the audience can feel towards Oedipus. In contrast, Sophocles continually reminds the audience of Oedipus’ own high moral position and how he tries to uphold this. Throughout the play Oedipus strives to discover the identity of Laius’ killer, and places great worth on pursuing the truth to ‘bring everything to light’ (p29).
This play forces the audience to confront its own values and morals and question good and bad. The protagonist is a complex character who at times can be admired while at others is pitied. He is purposely portrayed as difficult to understand so as to emphasise the contradictions in his character and challenge the audience. These contradictions are present in everyone, but the actions in this play make them appear more terrible. Without these contradictions, it would have been easy to dismiss Oedipus as a bad person and therefore the audience would not have engaged with the ideas and values presented.
Bibliography
Oedipus the King in Theben Plays, Sophocles, Penguin Books, Harmondworth, 1947, reprint 1974.
Sophocles, Oedipus the King in Theben Plays, Penguin Books, Harmondworth, 1947, reprint 1974.
Sopholles, op. cit., p. 27, ll. 7&9