Odipus Rex blog post #1
By Omar Andre
At this point I’m about halfway through oedipus rex. Here’s a quick run through of what has happened so far:
Oedipus came to a kingdom that was being haunted by a sphynx and somehow defeated this sphynx. Now, there is a great curse in the kingdom and according to a prophecy, the only way to drive away the curse is to banish or punish whomever killed the last king. Oedipus talked with another prophet, who told him that actually he was the killer. Oedipus at this point got pretty mad and overall suspicious of everyone around him. He drove the prophet out and turned on his brother in law because he thought he was conspiring against him. At this point it was revealed that he killed a group of people that might have been the past king, and that there might be some blood relation between the past king and him.
The main theme of the story appears to be fate. Oedipus is our main character, and the story, while at the beginning was about enacting justice, the story is now communicating that Oedipus is a character in denial of his own destiny. While not knowing if Oedipus really did it could be interpreted as a mystery, I kind of see it as a given that Oedipus is in denial about having done something wrong, about deserving the wrath of Apollo. The strongest evidence I can see of this is how irrational he acts towards his brother in law. The story paints his brother in law, Chreon as “correct”, or at the very least reasonable, through the chorus leader present in the conversation between Oedipus and Chreon. In this interaction, the chorus leader has the best interest of Oedipus at heart, but when Chreon speaks his mind, Oedipus and the chorus leader disagree on if he’s conspiring or not. In this interaction, the main difference between Oedipus and the chorus leader is how calm the chorus leader is vs how angry Oedipus is, and I think that the neutral and calm chorus leader siding with Chreon is signaling how the author wants us to feel about Creon.
I’ve enjoyed the monologues in the story. Sometimes the characters just go on and on about the same thing, so a lot of the dialogue is long winded conversation between two characters. I assume this is because it is a written down play and I just thought it was an interesting thing to note.
Overall, I’ve been enjoying the play, and the story has not progressed enough for a definite rating, but for now, Oedipus Rex gets a:
