Oedipus Rex & Hedda Gabler
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The structure of Greek drama follows a pattern, as do the plots themselves. The Greek audience would know from the beginning that the tragic character was fighting a fate that could not be overcome, for these stories were not original except in their specific interpretation or characterization. The nature of the stories was never altered. The audience at The Oresteia knew what would happen and so was already prepared for the lack of freedom of action facing these characters. The audience saw a lesson in this, a caution against excessive pride in lives actually controlled by the gods and their beneficence or lack of it. The story of Oedipus as told by Sophocles was well-known to the audience, and the playwright did not have to explain the ramifications of the story to them. What they would see unfold before them was the way in which Oedipus learned of his crime and the aftermath of that knowledge. Oedipus is well-established as an important character--he is the ruler of Thebes and is responsible for the welfare of the people. What happens to him thus has import beyond his immediate and personal situation--tragic characters are also high-born, as Aristotle says, because what happens to them has greater meaning than what happens to the low-born. The fatal flaw in Oedipus is that he did not heed the gods when they spoke through the Oracle at Delphi, telling his parents (and indirectly, him) that he would one day kill his father and marry his mother. Oedipus knows of
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e sin as such but about the manner in which Oedipus discovers the truth and how it affects him. The character of Oedipus is central to the play in every sense--he is the subject, the main character, and the sensibility through which all events are filtered. What we are seeing in the play is how these events affect this person. He begins by denying the possibility that what Teiresias says is possible, comes slowly to realize that the old man has told the truth, and then sees the enormity of what he has done. The terrible suffering that comes to Oedipus saves the city even as it destroys him, for the man must atone for the kingdom to prosper.
Work Cited
Sophocles. Oedipus Rex. In The Norton Introduction to Literature, Carl E. Bain, Jerome Beaty, and J. Paul Hunter (eds.). New York: W.W. Norton, 1991. 1227-1272.
In Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, it can be argued that Hedda Tesman kills Hedda Gabler. Of course, they are the same person, or at least inhabit the same body, with Gabler being the maiden name and Tesman the married name. Hedda makes a statement about her life and about the changes wrought by marriage when she kills herself. It is evident that she craves freedom and feels it has been taken from her by the
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2838
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)
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