Oedipus the King-Sophocles

This story was pretty interesting. Being part of a trilogy, just reading this one part didn’t give me much of a sense of what the characters were like. I could tell that Jocasta really loved Oedipus and him the same to her, but that was the only character elements I could really grasp. Oedipus is definitely one of the most interesting drama characters, and the story of Oedipus and the Sphinx is one of my all time favorites. The one thing that I got out of this story about Oedipus’ character was his tragic flaw. It seemed to me like he was very proud of where he came from, but also very scared. He was proud that he solved the riddle of the Sphinx and came to power as the king but he ignored all of the signs that pointed to his demise. His cowardliness was also a big flaw. He ran from all of these situations that a prophet predicted would come true, instead of facing all of them head on. It also seems like he was focusing on one event to hold him in power, the riddle of the Sphinx. He mentions it so much in this short time span that it made me think that maybe he was insecure about being the king so suddenly that he had to make it known that he deserved the title because he saved the people from the Sphinx.

This was the first drama I have read where there was a chorus. It seems like we have replaced the role the chorus played with extras in our modern shows. The extras will say little side comments to help the audience catch on or let them know what their reactions should be. The chorus seems like a strange concept; in this drama they acted all as the town’s people and also almost as an audience. To think of them singing all of these lines together also makes the concept even stranger. I was actually trying to sing the lines in my head at one point to see how it would sound and it was kind of weird.

Lastly, the structure of this piece is very simplistic. There are only a few characters, and mainly one person does all the talking. I felt like the whole drama was just one long monologue from Oedipus and the Chorus. To think of one person playing multiple characters would also make this an interesting show to see, or even perform. I continued to think throughout the reading how difficult it must have been for these actors to memorize all these lines along with changing characters. I definitely wouldn’t have been able to do that.