Book Review – Oedipus Rex by Sophocles

While I tend to read things in publication order, Sophocles’ Theban Plays probably have enough wiggle room on what’s been lost and when they were written that I can go through them in chronological order.

With my first introduction to the Greek plays being The Oresteia by Aeschylus, I found myself liking them enough but having a bit harder time pulling out from them what made them so influential on the road to Plato. With Sophocles, there’s no strain in figuring out what messages from the plays were used to talk about humanity in a greater context. On top of that, these are really good stories. Either that or I’m finally becoming smarter in reading the great books…nah!

Oedipus The King (aka Oedipus Rex) is essentially a murder mystery in the style of Columbo, as the audience knows who the murderer is, but with the twist ending for the character revealed. Modern jokes and Freud made popular the story of Oedipus for all the wrong reasons (go figure that Freud was wrong about something). Here, the story follows in the similar styles of previous Greek epics and plays and that’s the story of pride going before the fall and a sprinkling of destiny vs. free will. Oedipus starts as a likeable character who is attempting to save his people from a plague as a result of a murder (dun dun duuunnn). He’s a likable character at first and has been known to be a clever person with the defeat of the Sphinx which the kingdom in his control is the result of. He has also attempted to defy the gods not out of malice but in an attempt to show love for those he is slated to kill.

All that good will is built up and then dashed as he goes on to make rash vows for justice and being braggadocio as he solved one riddle so a murder investigation should be easy pickings for someone as big brained as he is, especially after he insults one of the best prophets of the Greeks. The buildup in the writing shows why Sophocles got the accolades after Aeschylus. Sophocles uses rising tension and bits of revelation to add to it. From there, it’s a great ride over the cresting hill when it all comes down on Oedipus. The interesting thing that Greek plays have that us modern readers can have with the audience is that we tend to know the stories these characters are a part of already. The audience knew the back story of Oedipus and the outcomes. What Sophocles gets to do is try and create a compelling story to reveal the details of that revelation and the story takes on a universal quality as we’re still using similar story elements to this day. The concept of pride and the downfall is one that keeps popping up for the Greeks and it seems like it once again up to Christianity to solve the problem of how to handle pride.