Liuqu
Sophie Class651 Vehicle Engineering 28 December 2016
The modern sense of tragedy in Oedipus the King
Oedipus was the King of Thebe in old Greek. He was the son of Laius king and Jocasta queen, and he killed his father subsequently married his mother with unknown. But he tried everything to escape the fate suggested by Oracle, while the process he escaped was the process he practiced it.
Oedipus had the unyielding will to fight with the fate, nevertheless, the outcome is he couldn't escape the net of fate and then go dying. The tragedy of Oedipus was not his own tragedy, but all the humankind. What is the significance of his experience for our modern society?In what way can we escape the \Dilemma\in the rapidly developing society?
We want to have self-explanation through this mirror, consequently know the Oedipus story exactly is the first step. Oedipus the King made by Sophocles was the bright star in old Greek tragedy. Laius had captured Chrysippus, son of Pelops, when he was young. As a result he got curse that he would be killed by his new born son. In order to escape the fate, he impaled his newborn son's ankle and put him away.
Little Oedipus was adopted by Polybos, then he grew up and knew his terrible fate. He left to Thebe to escape killing father and marrying mother. But the God of destiny makes fools of the people. In Thebe, he killed the King, his real father, Laius and married his real mother, Jocasta. The truth came out, and Jocasta took her own life. Oedipus blinked his own eyes and left Thebe for vagabondage. Although the protagonist had the perseverance to fight with fate, the force of fate is irresistible, the miserable cannot be transformed. But even then, the author gave high affirmation to such kind of spirit-revolt.
The tragedy is a mirror that humankind can see ourselves clearly from it. So the tragedy is not Oedipus' tragedy, but all the humans'. The story can happen in the past, obviously it can also happen in contemporary society, or in the future. We created the humankind civilization by our hands, but many factors made us be caught in trouble.
Though the tragedy, I got three pieces of enlightenment: viewpoint of fate, viewpoint of personality and viewpoint of causal relationship.
There is no doubt that Greeks believed in fate. In their eyes, the fate was planned well but Gods in advance, after that it's set upon men just like shackle, can't escape and get rid of. But while they believed fate, they had a little aspiration to fight against it. Just like Oedipus, he knew his fate, and he chose to leave home to get rid of it. Although this made him closer to fate, he made efforts to show his rebellious spirits. In this aspect, we can see, fate is invariable, it's the force which is irresistible, but it still cannot sink people's spirit to fight, on the fate of the tragic tone they had exceedingly positive outlook on life. But, when it comes to Laius, why did he put Oedipus away?
Believed fate and try to escape it or he can't face up to his fate. The Chinese author Luxun had said that \warriors dare to face gloomy life and dripping blood\Assuming that Oedipus hadn't been given up, but lived with father and mother's love, everything would change?
Maybe another tragedy would come out, but it would not be terrible like this. Accordingly, it seems that Greeks believed and obeyed negatively. When in the face of fate, they are inconsistent.
Also, Oedipus' personality was complicated. Many people have mentioned the Oedipus' human weakness, such as overconfident, irritable, unbelieving, reckless and so on. But we know that Oedipus was a normal man, he faced the terrible oracle, plague in his country, all these added pleasure in his mentality, which made him nervous and angry. So the overconfident, irritable, unbelieving, reckless personality seemed reasonable. Maybe can't control himself was his weakness, also it was the weakness of human nature. Besides, there was another fault, which was his mother complex, also called \complex\We can find that Oedipus never had love and merely had one mate, which was abnormal in old Greek. It was because of his mother complex that he never fell in love with any others. And he knew himself that he had such terrible intention, so he left without hesitation when he knew the oracle. If he has such consciousness which obeys moral principles, The tragedy was destined.
Where there's reek, there's heat. Laius was cursed because he captured Chrysippus, son of King Pelops, which made the tragedy. And to some extent, we made ourselves and also put ourselves into the abyss of perdition. But we blamed the result on fate. If Laius hadn't made such mistakes, the later tragedy would never
happen. But there was no \What we can do is pay attention to the reek, Take responsibility for our own actions.
Immanuel Kant, a philosopher from German, said that the greatness of Greek tragedy is that it reflected the darkest things in life faithfully, while it doesn't let a person feel bummed out at the last. Oedipus, whose life was destined to heartrending but always has the spirits to fight. The spirit which helps us become courageous to face the fate would never die out. Training and improving the healthy personality. Walk every step correctly. Always reflect our actions, don't let the noise of Oedipus' tragedyhappens again.