kim woods

SOPHOCLES: OEDIPUS REX

Structure: This play is an unfolding of truth…a flowering. A terrible birthing…

Prologue [lines 1-167] ---7 pages

What’s the problem? A plague. It requires a solution. What’s the solution? TRUTH. Oedipus is living a life that is not his own. Is that the “plague”?

Parados [lines 168-244] ---2 pages

Enter chorus singing, marching: begging Zeus, Apollo, Artemis, Dionysus. Help us.

When chorus comes out for parados we get our first sense that they are setting story “tone” and atmosphere.

Episode one [lines 245-526] ---10 pages

Tiresias; “you are the curse, the corruption of the land” [line 400]. “You are the murderer you hunt.” Oedipus blames Tiresias, then Creon This episode is a response to problem. But equilibrium is now upset, and story becomes his story, not the community’s.

First Stasimon [lines 527-573]---2 pages

Who could have done all this? The “grim, unerring furies closing for the kill…” [536] “The skilled prophet scans the birds…”

Chorus comes back for the first “stasimon.” Feeding the audience.

Episode two [lines 574-953]---15 pages

This act suggests a cycling inward---a conspiratorial feeling---where does everyone go with the information? Creon defends himself. “I am an abomination” Oedipus cries—convinced he is the one---but the episode ends with hope as he counts on shepherd’s tale to free him. So, episode is a continuing unfolding of the truth…this is where the “investigation” begins.

Second Stasimon [lines 954-997]---1 page

“Destiny, guide me always…” and “Great laws tower above us.” Theme of destiny asserting itself...

Episode three [lines 998-1194]---10 pages

News and revelation. JOCASTA TURNS SHARPLY. This is the moment when revelation is certain. But Oedipus is still somewhat blind. He thinks the problem is “common birth.” We are in Plato’s cave.

Third Stasimon [lines 1195-1214]---1 page

Here we are now with the chorus apparently telling us to feel pity, that Oedipus was a child of nature. We are all victims of these forces.

Episode four [lines 1215-1311]---5 pages

Very bad news: REVELATION: “O god, all come true—all burst to light! O light, now let me look my last on you.” Episode four is the shepherd and the final truth revealed.

Fourth Stasimon [lines 1312-1350]---1 page

Is the chorus blaming him? Does it have pity on him? “Is there a man more agonized?” TIME HAS DRAGGED YOU TO THE LIGHT---“now I weep like a man who wails the dead…” [suggestive]. The fourth stasimon is more wailing and pity---

Exodus [lines 1351-1684]---12 pages

It’s mine alone—my destiny—I am Oedipus! See episode as denouement in some ways: the agony of this man---the ecstatic suffering. This separates men from animals.

***Episode one is plotting

***Episode 2-4 is the unfolding mystery---the reversals, etc. the “discovery…”

***Exodus is the reaction act. The reaction to truth.

***So, play is essentially three larger parts: problem/unfolding and discovery/reaction.

Theme---cannot escape destiny. why is he stigmatized for something he had no control over? Does he have a tragic flaw? [see Aristotle]…

predestination: prophecies and oracles---big part of play--Believing in predestination frees people from worry

should one believe in oracles---did the Greeks believe in their own mythology? Are god’s malicious?

Character: Oedipus, Jocasta, Creon, Tiresias [chorus?]