Just finished Oedipus tonight

Just finished Oedipus tonight.
A lot of people say that fate is a major theme in this story. However, my professor said this isn't the case because the greeks didn't believe in fate. If that's true, then what would you consider the main, overarching theme of "Oedipus Rex" to be?

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moirai
it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiche
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Look too deeply into yourself and eventually you aren't gonna like what you find.

Always thought it was fate cuz it fits the story perfectly.

This is above average bait. I still won't help you do your homework though.

Oedipus Rex is a classic tragedy by the criteria defined by Aristotle. That is, the character traits that raise the hero to greatness are the same that doom him to disaster.

For a modern day equivalent, see Better Call Saul.

It is fate, your professor is retarded.

(OP)

Oedipus Rex is about a time travelling vixen who must engage in incestual relations in order to conceive the Kwizatz Haderach and save the iron chariot from the Philadelphia Parking Authority. The true meaning is lost on most readers.

His mom knew all along.

Freud got it wrong. Mother's want to fuck their sons

The main theme of Oedipus Rex is that you should fuck your mom a lot and get her pregnant several times.

>However, my professor said this isn't the case because the greeks didn't believe in fate
the hell, fate plays a major role in the iliad of all things

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moirai
>Even the gods feared the Moirai or Fates, which according to Herodotus a god could not escape.[59] The Pythian priestess at Delphi once admitted, that Zeus was also subject to their power, though no classic writing clarifies as to what exact extent the lives of immortals were affected by the whims of the Fates. It is to be expected that the relationship of Zeus and the Moirai was not immutable over the centuries. In either case in antiquity we can see a feeling towards a notion of an order to which even the gods have to conform. Simonides names this power Ananke (necessity) (the mother of the Moirai in Orphic cosmogony) and says that even the gods don't fight against it.[60] Aeschylus combines Fate and necessity in a scheme, and claims that even Zeus cannot alter which is ordained.[4]

Either OP is baiting the shit out of us ot he has the worst teacher ever.

OP look up "tyche."

>mfw friend tattoo'd the name Oedipus Rex over a picture of a wolf thinking it was cool as fuck, without realising who Oedipus even was

not entirely convinced it isn't fate. from what i've read and what people have told me, the greeks certainly did believe in fate.

Veeky Forums doesn't know shit. Get off this site and listen to your teacher

>my professor said this isn't the case because the greeks didn't believe in fate
you have not been listening to your teacher. if he is a real scholar he should know that fate is a difficult problem not only in greel history, but with history in general (just think about christian middle ages or fatalism in modern developement).
the italian page of wikipedia on "tyche" can show you well how the concept developed from author to author
it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiche
in one of menandro's plays -I think its "the shield"- she also appears as a character.
just keep in mind that fate becomes a big deal when democracy and political partecipation drops (ellenism for instance) because normal people life is not ruled by their actions, but others (alexander).
nevertheless sophocles wrote the oedipus in the most democratic context, so yes fate is argubily not a major theme compared to the knowledge\conciousness, the hybris and anagke, the false seight and the true blindness, the horacle and the sphinx.
want to know the main themes but too bored to read? just read the chorus.

I've also just read Sophocles' Theban plays today. What I took to be the main lesson of Oedipus Rex is that one can lead the most perfect, virtuous life and still end up in the most wretched state of all. The tragedy of the play is that Oedipus does absolutely nothing wrong, but his own free actions are fated to destroy himself.

That aside, did anyone else prefer Oedipus at Colonus like I did?

>my professor said this isn't the case because the greeks didn't believe in fate
Either you misunderstood him or that was a janitor.

It's hard to prefer one over the other. Colonus had a more mystical, ambiguous ending.

Antigone is the most tragic.

Underrated

Your opening sentence is nothing bar the manifestation of the ideal beauty. I just don't know how God himself didn't think of it as an opening line for the bible! Listen I'm a real hardass with my criticism; but trust me I orgasimed thrice while reading it. It made me think good, feel good, and get over my abortion.
The prose is on par with Stephen King's, dare I say, and it really just gets the reader hella hooked! The buildup is already there, and it's FABULOUS! You should definitely finish this and publish it. I'm happy to critique more, and I'm nothing but objective. I'll personally edit it if you allow me. You know you can just come to my apartment, I'm currently living alone so there's an empty room. I guess I can take you in as my personal little boipuspus fucktoy haha! Pls send more.

It's about riddles and oracles: figuring things out (or not). It's also about acting, and blindness.

It's about self knowledge as a condition for freedom from fate, at least that's what I gathered for my paper on it last year. I recommend you look into secondary sources to help articulate whatever interpretation you choose, it really helps

Good post.

C

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I preferred Oedipus at Colonus over the other two during my first reading, but when I re-read all of them I now prefer Rex and Antigone far more.

Yeah, I go easy on Veeky Forums.

How is it a condition for freedom from fate?

Oedipus' quest for self-knowledge dooms himself to his fate.

I Also preferred Oedipus at Colonus over the other two.
Going into them I thought I would prefer Antigone, and after reading Oedipus at Colonus I was very excited to read it because I was interested in Her.
>mfw Antigone is about Creon

What sex acts would you like with her?

I'd like for her to blindfold me, grab me by the arm and lead me away from Thebes.
Or if she's not into that we could go outside, lie down in the dirt and give me a proper burial.
If That's too hardcore we can just lock ourselves in a room and hang out

His quest for self knowledge is incomplete, he never learns about his origins or about his name. There was a question hidden in the answer that the oracle gave him. The delphic devise comes to mind

As for fate, Heraclitus explicited: A man's fate is his character. I'll let you meditate on that.

they definitely believed in fate. their stories are littered with examples of prophecy and people trying (and failing) to escape it. look at Homer's 2 works.

Æschylus>Sophocles>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Euripides

The draw of the tragedy comes from the ambiguity between whether he knew, on some level, that it was his mother or not. If it was entirely determined in advance, there's no draw. On the other hand, if he just decided to fuck his mom, there's no draw.

(this idea paraphrased from Kkg)

It's not ambiguous. He very clearly did not know his identity ("God keep you from knowing who you are!"), and it's exactly that ignorance which wins him some respite from the gods in "Oedipus at Colonus," in that he sinned but, as he repeatedly and painfully maintains, unknowingly. He even cites his fate as evidence that he himself is innocent (saying something along the lines of, "if the oracle was pronounced before my birth, how can I be blamed for the condition into which I was unknowingly born?").

There's an interesting chronological thematic development through the three plays, in order of their being written, rather than in order of the events they portray. Antigone was written first and in it figures Creon, who sins unknowingly (if stubbornly), and is quick to heed the warnings of the prophet Teiresias, but not quick enough to avoid suffering. Next is Oedipus the King, in which Oedipus sins, again, unknowingly--this time, unlike with Creon, having NO way to know he is sinning ("you have eyes but see not where you are in sin"), which redounds to his credit (eventually), but here he is punished for totally ignoring Teiresias. So the nature of the unwitting criminal's crime is changed, as is his response to the prophet. Finally you get Oedipus at Colonus, in which Oedipus spends a lot of his time with the chorus maintaining his innocence, and declaring that he has lived a life of suffering in penance for what he did ("before the law--before god--I am innocent"). Only then does he get his release from death which he has repeatedly requested. It's a very human innocence that he proclaims, since he did, after all, sin, and it's the very fact that he did so unknowingly which makes the issue human--it's a great exploration of the "common weakness of mankind" so often touched on in the ancient world, basically acknowledging and trying to cope with the limitations of human knowledge, and the frailty of human decisions in the face of Fate which not even Zeus can overcome, "For he, too, cannot escape what is fated," and which seemingly arbitrarily toys with men's fortunes, most visibly in laying low those who have been exalted. Hence the closing choral lines of Rex:
"see him now and see the breakers of misfortune swallow him!
Look upon that last day always. Count no mortal happy till
he has passed the final limit of his life secure from pain"

And compare that with ancient historical comments like "fortune has only lent them these blessings until she decides to deal differently with them," and the famous warning to Creon by the sages of Greece: "No man while yet living was blest."

Woops, meant to say warning to Croesus, not Creon.

Sorry for any other typos, I'm on my phone.

This shit is hilarious and idk why you faggits aren't laughing