Meditation Five: Oedipus Rex

Title/Subject: Oedipus Rex

There are many different ways to look at the plot of Oedipus Rex. You can look at it in terms of the timing – the fact that the audience comes in medias res – the action that the plot is based around has already taken place. The former king has already been murdered. The relationships between the characters are already set and the history behind them isn’t really explained at the beginning. I realize that this, of course, is because we are reading the second part of a trilogy. It is important to understand that, but this is a look at Oedipus Rex, not the trilogy, and in Oedipus Rex the audience is basically thrown into the middle of the mess and expected to either figure it out or wait for it to be revealed to them.


Another way to look at the plot is to look at how it handles the idea of Fate. Sophocles does a more than efficient job in making the audience sense of undeniable consequences for the man who committed the murder. Oedipus immediately sets up consequences for the man who he finds as the murder of the former king. The prophet Teirsias also sets up consequences for the murderer, although it is because he is challenged by Oedipus. Even Oedipus, when he realizes he may be the murderer, speaks about how he will never be able to see his people again – he will have to leave the city and never return.


I always find it so amusing to read Greek plays – just like I find it amusing to watch soap operas. If everyone wasn’t so duplicitous and double-crossing, none of this would have happened! The plot of Oedipus Rex is just like the other plays we’ve been reading – death, murder, etc. But plays like this are what people wanted to see, so I know that I can’t fault the playwrights. I also can’t fault them because what would theater be without this history, these infamous plays?