Oedipus rex

This paper challenges the accepted interpretation of Oedipus Rex, which takes Oedipus' ignorance of the relevant facts to be an established matter. I argue that Oedipus' epistemic state is ambiguous, and that this in turn generates a moral ambiguity with respect to his actions. Because ignorance serves as a moral excuse, my demonstration that Oedipus was not ignorant bears significantly on the moral meaning of the play. I next propose to anchor this ambiguity in the Freudian notion of the unconscious, by presenting an interpretation that treats Oedipus' knowledge as unconscious. I discuss the moral status of an agent acting from unconscious knowledge and find it to be genuinely indeterminate, thus supporting my claim that the play is epistemically and morally ambiguous.

In literature, novelists, playwrights, and dramatists use various literary elements to explain their work. Blindness is explored in depth in Sophocles' Oedipus. People can be physically blind, where they cannot see their surroundings; on the other hand, people can have physical sight but be blind to the future or the spiritual authorities around them.

In King Oedipus (429 B.C.E) by Sophocles and Death of a Salesman (1949 A.D) by Arthur Miller, the central characters Oedipus and Willy Loman take extreme pride in their professions; their pride blinds them from seeing the reality of their circumstances, and it eventually brings their ruin. At the same time, the other characters also display their figurative blindness in both the tragedies. However, it is demonstrated that the protagonists do not succeed in executing their responsibilities as leaders and instead encircle themselves with personal conflicts, which affect their families and others. They strive to rise above their problems with a view to avoiding any possibility of failure. Accordingly, they imbibe willingness in their nature to bring happiness in their plain lives. Ironically, just like Oedipus, Willy Loman never realises the full truth of himself and goes through his life in a blind manner.

1993

Arion, 1966

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This paper argues that psychoanalysts must revisit Oedipus Rex to extract its deeper lessons. Although Oedipus does demonstrate genuinely oedipal desires, his tragedy stems not so much from them as from a narcissistic rage over his original mutilation and abandonment by his parents. But Oedipus is not only the object of our analysis; he is a prototype of the psychoanalyst, as Freud himself recognized. Sophocles thus appears to diagnose the dangers of psychoanalysis. Whatever hope exists in the midst of these dangers is then inferred from his prophetic sequel, Oedipus at Colonus.

1991