Group No: 4

Subject Drama

Topics Theme of Appearance and Reality in

Oedipus Rex

Submitted to Ma`am Hasna

Group Members Roll no.18-Ummara Zulfiqar

Roll no.23-Nazia Manzoor Roll no.25-Madiha Alamgir

Roll no.33-H.Surriya Shoaib Roll no.47-Sumaira Manzoor Roll no.50-Saba Saleem

BS(English) 5th semester

Oedipus Rex Introduction: Sophocles’ immortal and mythical play, Oedipus Rex is believed to be one of the best classical

examples of tragedy. “Oedipus Rex”, produced by Sophocles in the maturity of his powers, is his masterpiece. Aristotle also regarded this play as Sophocles best and he frequently referred to it as

the perfect type of tragic composition. In English translation the play is generally known as Oedipus the King or King Oedipus, but Oedipus Rex, the Latin title, is the most popular.

In Oedipus Rex, Sophocles leaves a major part of story outside the plot. He deals directly with only the last day of Oedipus rule over Thebes. We are to believe that Oedipus has been ruling happily over Thebes for about fifteen years. His personal life also has been a very happy one. He

has four children by his wife, Jocasta. Infact, it appears that even a further happiness is in store for him, for after the death of Polybus he is to succeed him to the throne of Corinth also.

However, all this happiness is misleading. It is revealed in a moment that, far from being the happiest of men, Oedipus is the most miserable of them. Instead of being the intelligent solver of riddles, which he himself and as well as his subjects believe him to be, he is ignorant even of his

identity and parentage. In ignorance he has killed his father and married his mother. Believing himself the Corinthian prince, and trying to evade the fate which the Oracle has predicted for

him, he actually runs into its clutches. This play may be considered as a play enacting the theme of blindness to reality and insecurity of

revealing realities.

Tragedy of Appearance:

The theme of appearance and reality is such a dominant one in Oedipus Rex, and the obsession

with appearance plays such an important part in Oedipus’ Tragedy, that the play can be termed

as a tragedy of appearance in human life, in which the opposite of appearance is truth or reality.

The older view which considered Oedipus Rex as a tragedy of fate is incorrect, especially in the

sense of fate as the opposite of freedom. It must be noted that none of the choral odes in the play

signs of fate, but in one of the odes there is a significant reference to appearance – the

appearance of happiness. The ode asserts that nobody among men can seize more of happiness

than its mere appearance, and that even such a person would fall before he has even won the

appearance of happiness.

The Battle of Appearance:

At first it is on behalf of appearance that we see a battle waged in Oedipus Rex. As this battle

progresses we see appearance losing more and more ground. The first stage in it is the institution

of the divinely-instructed enquiry into the death of Laius, which means that the appearance of it

–that it was the work of outland robbers-is not trusted.

Quite early in the inquiry, Oedipus is led astray by an appearance –which the robbers who were

alleged to have attacked Laius must have been associated with Thebes, and the suspicion that

Creon must have been at their back. Then suddenly, after, the quarrel with the hostile prophet,

the suspicion is confirmed the connection between Creon and Teiresias is established, and then

the existence of a whole web of enmity corroborated as fact. Oedipus suspects that the robbers

were bribed to play their part and ultimately he thinks that both Creon and Teiresias were behind

them. Thus the supposed existence of a plot to murder of Laius is another appearance which

leads Oedipus astray. We find that Oedipus is worried about another appearance ….that the

murderer of Laius might raise his hand against Oedipus also, and for the same reason.

For not on behalf of distant friends,

But on my own behalf, I remove this infancy.

For whoever struck him dead-how easily

Might he move with like hand against me?

Oedipus believes in the appearance of some unknown enemy and pronounces on him the

sentence of outlawry, and also utters a curse on him.

As for the criminal. I pray to God-

Whether it be a lurking thief, or one of a number-

I pray that that man’s life be consumed in evil and wretchness.

The reality of it, that it is on himself that he is passing both the sentences, “is unknown to him”.

As crude says, the play shows man as entangled in being and appearance, and the two

encountering each other in every word and every gesture.

Open Battle Between Appearance and Reality:

The unspoken battle between truth and appearance gives place to an open contest. We see this

first in the confrontation between Oedipus and Teirisias .It is not between truth and error that this

battle is waged, but between the reality of truth and the reality of mere appearance. “Tragic error

is something which overtakes man”. But tragic appearance , in which Oedipus finds himself ,

and which undoubtedly is typical of tragic art in its more profound form , is something that

encloses and conditions man from the beginning-that is to say , what he is and what he wills to

be , king , husband , leader , saviour’ it is his strength and security ;it is everything that keeps

him safe. Oedipus stands within the realm of appearance and is hurled out of it.

Appearance and Reality of Oedipus’ parentage: 1. If we take the birth of Oedipus we see that when an oracle tells the king Laius that this

son will kill him and marry his own mother, Laius and Jocasta give their infant son to a servant to leave him on a hill side to be killed there. But the reality is that the servant gives the child to a Corinthian herdsman. He passes the little boy on to king Polybus of Corinth. Oedipus thinks

himself as the real son of Polybus but in reality he is an adopted son.

2. When Oedipus overhears from a drunken man that he is not the son of Polybus, he asks the Oracle to tell him the truth. The Oracle adds to his worries that he will kill his father and marry his mother. Thinking Polybus and Merope his real parents and avoiding the shameful

situation Oedipus leaves Corinth forever. While wandering he kills four passengers including his own father Laius. Here Oedipus did not know the reality that he had committed Patricide.

Appearance and Reality of Jocasta and Oedipus Relationship:

When the people of Thebes offer him the kingship of Thebes they do not know the reality

that Oedipus is the murderer of their king. And when Oedipus and Jocasta the widow of Laius fell in love with each other and marry, nobody knows that they are mother and son committing

incest. She is his wife as well as his mother but both of them are unaware of the reality. Appearance and Reality in Oedipus’ Curses and Suspicions:

Oedipus speech demanding the people to reveal the murderer in the initial part of the play is an important example of irony. Because he does not know that cursing Laius’

murderer to live in wretchedness he is cursing himself.

When Oedipus came to know that the murder case of the former king is not investigated, he suspects that there is a hand of Creon in killing the king. But in reality Creon is not power-hungry and he is a fair man.

Oedipus taunts Tiresias for his blindness. He says’

‘You sightless, witless, senseless, mad, old man. You child of endless night. You

cannot hurt me or any other man who sees the sun.’ This is an excellent example of verbal irony though Oedipus himself was the child of

endless night. His own sight blinded him of the truth.

Oedipus thinks that being an intelligent man, he is the master of his own life, and fate has nothing to do with him. But in reality he is not more than a puppet in the hands of

fate and power of gods.

Appearance and Reality of Guilt and innocence:

Appearance and truth come into the picture also in the discussion of the guilt or innocence of

Oedipus. One may note that when Oedipus refers to the death of Laius, after he has learnt new

facts from Jocasta, he speaks of himself in terms of a criminal, of one who is guilty of the murder

of another, although a murder committed in self-defence.However, even that does not mean that

he takes upon himself the blame of being a murderer. Oedipus says that it was Apollo who

imposed this agony on him, but the bloody hand that struck the blow was his own. Neither in a

moral sense, nor even in a purely legal sense is Oedipus guilty. In another sense, guilt and

innocence make no difference to Oedipus’ situation-which consists in what he has learnt about

himself.

Conclusion:

Undoubtedly Oedipus Rex is the great tragedy of Appearance and reality, of unconscious to

conscience crime, Pride of a king to pathos of a mere man, of character and fate, of truth of

ignorance and reality of knowing. Oedipus Rex is not only the greatest play of Sophocles but

also the greatest Greek play. Oedipus believes one aspect to be the truth, while the reality is quite

different. This lies in his rejection of the oracle and its prophecies, as well as his dismissive

attitudes towards Teiresias. Throughout the play, Oedipus believes his own subjectivity over the

conditions of reality that might threaten such a vision. It might be this desire to believe the

appearances and constructs of consciousness that lead him to embrace his hubris, of excessive

pride, as opposed to admitting that there might be some condition in the external worlds that

contradicts what he might believe about himself. When Oedipus believes his own sense of

certainty about his reality, fueled by his own hubris, there is an embrace of false constructions of

reality. It is this collision between his own subjective and the harsh truth of reality that causes

the tragic ending. When he blinds himself, it is the blinding of his own belief in appearances and

the embrace of a reality that he now sees in his own mind, but not with his physical sense of

sight.