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Frasier Fill out the comedy study guide. Watch for the Oedipal myth. Over the weekend, complete the Oedipus reading guide. Purchase Medea, peruse the introduction.

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Oedipus the King Philosophical Chairs Take with you: your book, your notes

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Rules of engagement Read the material and opening statement carefully; be sure to understand it. Listen to the person who is speaking (dont raise hands, interrupt, scoff, or cheer). Understand differing points of view. Contribute your own thoughts, offering your reasons succinctly as possible. Use Oedipus and other literary or modern examples. Respond to the statements only, not to the personality of the person giving it. Change your mind about the statement as new information or reasoning is presented. Move to the opposite side or the undecided chairs as your thinking changes (movements should not be acknowledged) Support the mediator in maintaining order and helping the discussion to progress. Reflect on the experience (homework)

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Aristotle asserts that Oedipus brought about his own downfall by stubbornly seeking the truth about himself despite the warnings that it will not bring him happiness. Do you agree? Yes No "I always wanted a fire truck when I was little. I never got one. That's why I'm evil, heheheheheh!" Zorak, Cartoon PlanetThat's why I'm evilheheheheheh!Cartoon Planet

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People always think that because Aristotle said a tragic hero's downfall should be due to a "tragic flaw" (hamartia), and Aristotle admired King Oedipus above all tragedies, therefore Oedipus must have a "flaw". [This is a false premise under Aristotle's very own logic.] And so they have struggled to find one!... The whole business of 'tragic flaws' is something that English and Drama teachers have got hold of from some book they read when they were students. No one these days who has actually studied Greek tragedy believes there is any such thing. Andrew Letters on the Classics Right! There is NO fatal flaw. Wrong! He is flawed. What could it have been? Bad temper? King Laius under divine protection? Carelessness? Pride/Arrogance/Hubris (Are they all even the same?) Fatal curiosity? NONSENSE.

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I realized something quite interesting: just about everything Aristotle says about tragic heroes is wrong. Aristotle had postulated the principle of the tragic flaw in tragedy. A hero, who is mostly good, makes some sort of mistake related to character flaw, usually hybris or pride. However, from what I read, I realized that tragic heroes are almost never brought down by flaws or by hubris. In fact, in most cases, the protagonist is actually destroyed by his or her virtues. In puzzling over this, I realized that Aristotle is, in fact, not trying to explain exactly what is happening in tragedy but what should be happening. He is answering a very specific challenge to the very existence of tragedy presented by Plato in the Republic Book III. Plato had argued that tragedy corrupted the audience. Aristotle's development of the tragic flaw is a response to this challenge. --The author has a Ph.D. in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy. Team Aristotle Team Plato

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"Fine! The gloves are off pal! C'mon, lemme see a little wrath! Smite me, O mighty smiter! You're the one who should be fired! The only one around here not doing his job is you! ANSWER ME!!! Bruce Nolan, Bruce AlmightyBruce NolanBruce Almighty

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The Philosophy of the Absurd One of the main themes of Camus philosophy is rebellion, but not in the sense of a full-fledged revolt. Sisyphus rebels, not in refusing to continue his arduous task, but in the fact that he refuses to accept the absurdity of his punishment. Mans tragedy is his consciousness, his awareness of his own condition. Oedipus was always the pawn of fate, but his tragedy begins the moment he knows the truth. Sisyphus teaches there is no fate that can not be surmounted by scorn.

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What does it mean? Camus defines it as a confrontation between rational human beings and an indifferent universe. Despite our hopes, dreams, expectations and even our efforts, the world does not deliver what we expect, nor does it seem to care what becomes of us. Only personal experience is meaningful; meaning can not be found in others or outside forces. Meursault accepts the indifference of the universe as brotherly in The Stranger. Death makes life absurd.

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Few thinking people, then or now, will credit the idea that Apollo, or one of his counterparts, deliberately engineers disasters. But Sophocles' theme rings partially true to those of us who approach the universe with a sense of awe, as a mystery where perhaps there is more than there appears to be. Oedipus plight shows meaning to the audience. What happens to Oedipus is absurd. Sophocles proves the Gods are pointless in the story. Life is absurd. "Fine! The gloves are off pal! C'mon, lemme see a little wrath! Smite me, O mighty smiter! You're the one who should be fired! The only one around here not doing his job is you! ANSWER ME!!! Bruce Nolan, Bruce AlmightyBruce NolanBruce Almighty

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The most significant feature of a traditional hero in comparison with the others in his community is his willingness to act, to make decisions (usually in response to a crisis of some kind), and to step forward and take risks in the face of fate at a time when such decisions are necessary. Oedipus is the embodiment of the traditional hero. (Think in comparison to the chorus.) True False

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The chorus typically acknowledge their timidity or bewilderment or anxiety in the face of the crisis and look to the hero for leadership, often placing their hopes in the hero's record of previous successes. They are followers and require someone to step out an assume the risks of making decisions about what the community should do. This is the role of modern-day society as well. True False

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Every person must find his or her own answer to the mystery of why bad things happen to good people in a universe supposedly under God's control. Yet even if people reach different conclusions, and express them freely, people can usually still live and work together in peace and good-will. True False

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Pride, arrogance, hubris, sin they are all the same. True False

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There is no free will in Oedipus the King. True False

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In our world, very bad things do sometimes happen to very good people. Your chief security comes from what people know you can do well. You can succeed with your natural abilities, your effort, and your good character. It's safest, and the best strategy, to try to be a good person. This should work for you. True False

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Riddle of the Sphinx Who in the morning walks on four legs, at midday on two, and in the evening on three?

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Reflect Reflect on the statements and arguments you heard/made today. Respond to at least one of the questions below in a brief paragraph (1/4-1/2 page). Is there some question left unanswered for you? Explain. Did someone change your mind throughout this process? Explain. Do you feel more conviction or less conviction in your beliefs (in literature, the universe, tragedy, religion, etc.)? Explain. Is there something you wanted to say, but you were unable to do so? If so, what is it? The discussion today raised additional questions. What are they? Why cant everyone think like me? Explain. *These may be read aloud as a debriefing in the future. Be aware of your statements weight, but BE HONEST.

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On Misunderstanding the Oedipus Rex E. R. Dodds

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Part of academia is reading scholarly work. Practice breaking it down. Create an outline of his argument. Essential questions: What are the three philosophies under which readers fall? What are Dodds arguments regarding each group? On Misunderstanding the Oedipus Rex E. R. Dodds Eric Robertson Dodds (26 July 1893 8 April 1979) was an Irish classical scholar.

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In what sense, if in any, does Oedipus Rex attempt to justify the ways of God to man? 1 st Group? 2 nd Group? 3 rd Group? What does Dodds say about each groups response?

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First Group The play justifies the gods by showing or proving that we get what we deserve

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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

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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.

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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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.