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.
Slide 2
Oedipus the King Philosophical Chairs Take with you: your book,
your notes
Slide 3
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)
Slide 4
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
Slide 5
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.
Slide 6
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
Slide 7
"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
Slide 8
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.
Slide 9
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.
Slide 10
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
Slide 11
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
Slide 12
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
Slide 13
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
Slide 14
Pride, arrogance, hubris, sin they are all the same. True
False
Slide 15
There is no free will in Oedipus the King. True False
Slide 16
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
Slide 17
Riddle of the Sphinx Who in the morning walks on four legs, at
midday on two, and in the evening on three?
Slide 18
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.
Slide 19
On Misunderstanding the Oedipus Rex E. R. Dodds
Slide 20
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.
Slide 21
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?
Slide 22
First Group The play justifies the gods by showing or proving
that we get what we deserve
Slide 23
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
Slide 24
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.
Slide 25
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.
Slide 26
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
Slide 27
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
Slide 28
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.
Slide 29
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.