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Oedipus, Fate, and Tragedy. The Fates.
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The Fates The Fates have the subtle but awesome power of deciding a man's destiny. They assign a man to good or evil. Their most obvious choice is choosing how long a man lives. There are three Fates: Clotho, the spinner, who spins the thread of life; Lachesis, the measurer, who chooses the lot in life one will have and measures off how long it is to be; Atropos, she who cannot be turned, who at death with her shears cuts the thread of life.
Fatalism • fa·tal·ism (f t l- z m) • n. • 1. The doctrine that all events are predetermined by fate and are therefore unalterable. • 2. Acceptance of the belief that all events are predetermined and inevitable. • fa tal·ist n. • fa tal·is tic adj. • fa tal·is ti·cal·ly adv.
Fate, Fatalism, and Being Fatalistic “But suppose God is outside and above the Time-line. In that case, what we call ‘tomorrow’ is visible to Him in just the same way as what we call today." All the days are ‘Now’ for Him. He does not remember you doing things yesterday, He simply sees you doing them: because, though you have lost yesterday, He has not. He does not ‘foresee’ you doing things tomorrow, He simply sees you doing them: because, though tomorrow is not yet there for you, it is for Him. You never supposed that your actions at this moment were any less free because God knows what you are doing. Well, He knows your tomorrow's actions in just the same way—because He is already in tomorrow and can simply watch you. In a sense, He does not know your action till you have done it: but then the moment at which you have done it is already ‘Now’ for Him.” - C. S. Lewis from Mere Christianity
The Concept of Fate To invoke the concept of fate or have a fatalistic vision of experience is to claim that the most important forces that create, shape, guide, reward, and afflict human life are out of human control. The terms fate and fatalistic assert that someone or something is in control, and hence the universe does not operate by chance.
Modern Attitude to Fate We have been trying to take control of the game of life, to reshape it to our own purposes, and to deny the existence of some greater powers over which we have no control. We have done this by launching a massive project to assault as much of nature as we can, so as to bring it under human control, so that we are no longer victims of casual changes in climate, bacterial infections, harvest failures, natural disasters. And we have been, in many quarters, so spectacularly successful that we are encouraged to think that we have only a short route to go before we become, as the saying has it, masters of our own fate.
Are We Masters of Our Own Fate? Severe natural disasters or new outbreaks of massive lethal epidemics and similar occurrences are often unpleasant reminders that, even if we don't like to think about fate, we may not have put our fates as much under our control as we might wish. Oedipus the King, some have argued, is making precisely that point
“On Misunderstanding of Oedipus Rex”E.R. Dodds First Group: The play justifies the gods by showing or proving that we get what we deserve. Second Group: The play proves that man has no free will but is a puppet in the hands of the gods who pull the strings that make him dance. Third Group: Sophocles is a pure artist and was therefore not interested in justifying the gods. The story of Oedipus is simply used to make an exciting play. *Read Dodd’s “On Misunderstanding of Oedipus Rex”
Response to First Group • Can we find moral fault in Oedipus? • He IS proud and overconfident. Is that enough to constitute the hamartia of Oedipus? • Did Sophocles intend us to think Oedipus a good man? YES • His hamartia exists in his parricide and incest, not with losing his temper with Tiresias • Could Oedipus have avoided his fate? NO! The oracle unconditionally says you WILL kill your father and sleep with your mother.
Response to Second Group • We cannot view the play from one of the two clear-cut views – either we believe in free will or else we are determinists • Certainly Oedipus’ past actions were fate-bound; but everything else that he does ON THE STAGE from the first to the last he does as a free agent • What causes his ruin is his own strength and courage, his loyalty to Thebes, and his loyalty to the truth. In all this we are to see him as a free agent.
Response to Third Group • A healthy reaction against the old moralizing school of critics BUT • Sophocles did not believe that the gods are, in any human sense, just • He did not always believe that the gods exist and that men should revere them • It is looking through our Christian spectacles that we demand God to be just. The older world saw no such necessity • There is an objective world order which man must respect, but which he cannot fully hope to understand
Dodds’ Conclusion Certainly the Oedipus Rex is a play about the blindness of man and the desperate insecurity of the human condition: in a sense every man must grope in the dark as Oedipus gropes, not knowing who he is or what he has to suffer; we all live in a world of appearance which hides us from who-knows-what dreadful reality. But surely the Oedipus Rex is about human greatness. *Read Dodd’s “On Misunderstanding of Oedipus Rex” (outline on my website as a ppt.
Contd. Oedipus IS great, not in virtue of a great worldly position – for his worldly position is an illusion which will vanish like a dream – but in virtue of his inner strength: strength to pursue the truth at whatever personal cost and strength to accept and endure it when found. Oedipus is a kind of symbol of the human intelligence that cannot rest until it has solved all the riddles – even the last riddle, to which the answer is that human happiness is built on an illusion.
Medea What is the metanarrative surrounding Medea? TED talk by : Jackson Katz “Violence Against Women: it’s a men’s issue”
The strong female character • Medea: Medea • The Lion in the Winter: Eleanor of Aquitaine • Macbeth: Lady Macbeth • Doll House: Nora Helmer and Hedda Gabler
Medea Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned
Conflicts in Play • Husband • Man • Citizen • Wife • Woman • Foreigner
Vocabulary • Machiavel: marked by cunning, duplicity, or bad faith • Xenophobe: one unduly fearful of what is foreign and especially of people of foreign origin • Misogynist: a hatred of women • Pragmatist: a practical approach to problems and affairs • Regicide: the crime of killing a king or queen • Infanticide: the act of killing a baby • Patricide: the act of murdering your own father • Fratricide: the crime of murdering your own brother or sister
Revenge • Revenge is both poetic justice and bloody justice • The revenge figure is a sign of the movement towards the destruction of chaos and a sign of chaos itself
DeadLaw Abiding Citizen http://www.lawabidingcitizenfilm.com/
Revenge is feelings disguised as duty • The revenge figure moves outside the society’s code of behavior • What the revenger wants is itself a paradox: natural justice, a code of feeling aligned with a code of civilization • The revenger’s refusal or inability to go to the law puts him outside the social bonds that prompt his desire for revenge • He is a sign of chaos and a movement toward the destruction of chaos • This is typically why the revenge figure must die • The restoration of order requires the extinction of anti-social elements
Beware of Binary Opposites • Greek • Reason • Rational • New Yorkers • Barbarian • Passion • Superstitious • Southerners
Medea Group Study • Work together to complete the Medea close reading. (30 minutes)
Study GuideMedea • Compare Jason to other heroes you have studied. Does he seem heroic? What is virtuous or sleazy about him? What specifically has he done wrong? What motivates Jason? • This is still one of the most controversial plays ever written, with its evocations of women’s rights and Medea’s choice of infanticide. Consider carefully what you think of its awesome heroine. Pay close attention to how and when she makes the decision to kill her children. • Does Medea remind you of other women in myth? The audience would expect her to be a witch; does Euripides fulfill those expectations, or does he present a less than demonic woman? • Euripides, as Sophocles once said, drew men as they are, not as they ought to be. Do you agree? In what ways are his characters, plots, and actions more realistic? • Medea’s great speech is stunningly modern in its account of the injustices done to women in patriarchal societies. Medea may seem at times a frightening character, but compare her real ethical concerns with the rather shallow and scheming plans of Creon and Jason. Do you see any significance in the namelessness of her rival? • Consider the curious scene with Aegeus. Who is he and what is he doing there? What does the curious oracle given to him mean? • At the end of the play, where is Medea? What impact does her position have?
