Oedipus from a shepherd in Laius’ household. Jocasta sees the truth and begs
Oedipus to desist but ironically he misinterprets her motives, thinking she fears that
he may be low-born. He hails himself the child of chance (l. 1080). The chorus joyfully
speculate that he is the son of a god. Then the servant of Laius is called and the truth
is revealed, so that the reversal and discovery are completed.
The audience, of course, has known the truth all along, as the myth existed long
before Sophocles and is known to Homer, for Odysseus encounters Jocasta, whom
he calls Epicaste, in the underworld. When, therefore, Oedipus says at the opening
of the play, ‘I am here to learn for myself, I Oedipus, whose name is known from far’,
he is thinking of the fame he has acquired through his intelligence in solving the riddle
of the Sphinx, whereas his real fame, before and after Freud, has always stemmed
from parricide and mother-marrying. So much that he says has a double significance.
No other Greek play (perhaps no other play at all) has exploited this dramatic irony
so ruthlessly, and much of the play’s impact and symbolic force lie in the ignorance
and blindness of Oedipus brought out in the play’s plot, its imagery and its language,
in the contrast between the blind prophet Tiresias who knows and the seeing Oedipus
who does not know, and in the reversal when the knowing Oedipus blinds himself
because he cannot bear to look upon the light of day. (In Homer there is no mention
of the self-blinding: Oedipus lives on in Thebes haunted by the Furies of his mother,
Odysseyll, 271–280.)
The play therefore seems to fulfil Aristotelian requirements for a tragic fall:
Wesaw that the structure of tragedy at its best should be complex, not simple,
and that it should represent actions capable of awakening fear and pity. ... It
follows in the first place that good men should not be shown passing from
prosperity to misery, for this does not inspire pity, it merely disgusts us. Nor should
evil men be shown progressing from misery to prosperity. This is the most untragic
of all plots, for it has none of the requisites of tragedy; it does not appeal to our
humanity, or awaken pity or fear in us. Nor again should an utterly worthless man
be seen falling from prosperity into misery. Such a course might indeed play upon
our humane feelings, but it would not arouse either pity or fear; for our pity is
awakened by undeserved misfortune and our fear by that of someone just like
ourselves.. .. There remains a mean between these extremes. This is the sort of
man who is not conspicuous for virtue and justice and whose fall into misery is not
due to vice and depravity, but rather to some error (hamartia), a man who enjoys
prosperity and a high reputation like Oedipus.
(Poetics, 13)Although Aristotle begins with the best structure (he calls plot ‘the soul of tragedy’:
character comes second: Poetics, 6) he imperceptibly moves into the question of
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