Last year, following a reading of Oedipus Rex and Antigone (both by the Athenian playwright Sophocles), my English teacher assigned a writing assignment linking what we read in both plays. We were allowed to discuss any theme we wished. I studied Sophocles’ interpretation of society through an organismic/anatomical perspective. Oedipus and his dynastic family, the Cadmian line, represent the core of Theban society. Any corruption of that core spreads like a disease through all of society. My thesis claims that this is exactly what happened and that the role of Antigone was to restore balance to society through the assertion of the individual and her ultimate sacrifice to meet this end.
Oedipus is the state. It is this profound association between individual and society that transforms Sophocles’s play Oedipus Rex into a living cross-section of human identity. We are first introduced to Oedipus as king, though we know more about his past than just this. We know that his parents were convinced of his future adhering to a prophecy laid out by Apollo, one that directly threatened the lives of his parents. This prophecy would forever haunt Oedipus in the form of oracular visions and gradual unveilings of reality which only served to reinforce the validity of these visions. Sophocles conceives of this cursed existence to carry forth the notion of a diseased society, with Oedipus as the sickly organ. Indeed, we must think of Thebes, and society itself, as an organism that lives and breathes in order to see Oedipus’s significance in this light. Throughout the play there is an almost symbiotic relationship between Oedipus and Thebes. It can be argued that the line of Cadmus itself is a vital organ in this organism. This is best understood when one thinks back to the legend of Cadmus sowing the dragon’s teeth in the land that became Thebes. But while Oedipus is an organ, he is also human, and this dual state of existence forms the personal substrate of this tragedy. We also see in Oedipus the physical manifestation of humanity’s need for disorder and change, a need which flies in the face of all that society seeks to establish. Indeed, this is also what is seen in Antigone from the play Antigone. And so, as the congealment of humanity’s subconscious fears and inability to live up to its own moral standards, Oedipus is met with nausea. He is despised for his flaws, flaws which are human, all too human. The tragedy inherent in society is that we the people who compose society are flawed yet we seek to exist as a collective in something greater than the sum of our parts. Furthermore, we hold ourselves accountable to this whole, a result of which is unavoidable irony and hypocrisy. And yet, the everlasting dream of order compels us to persist, a condition which is beautifully expressed in the “Ode to Man” in Antigone. Sophocles expands on all these ideas through the use of dramatic irony to create a powerful catharsis, the imagery of Oedipus’s and Antigone’s physical condition, and the symbolism of space.
As a member of the line of Cadmus, Oedipus cannot be accurately understood solely as a human being. Rather, he is a hybrid, part human and part divine, whose duty as a member of this lineage is to serve the state of Thebes. It can be argued that all individuals who live within a society act as cells which compose the greater organism that is society. But because Oedipus is the descendant of such a powerful lineage, he possesses within himself the functionality of an organ. One can already see the tragedy in this existence. Being part human, Oedipus sees himself as a wholly independent being. What better reflection of this side of his identity than when he, “…wandered farther and farther on my way / To a land where I should never see the evil / Sung by the oracle” (Oedipus Rex, Antistrophe 2, 272–274). It is because of this, however, that he reaches Thebes where he completed the other half of his original prophecy and bore children with his mother. Therefore, what he imagines to be free will is simply a deception generated by his subconscious obligation to serve the state, Thebes, as an organ. Oedipus’s escape from Corinth is an example of how Sophocles establishes a sense of hidden anguish through the usage of dramatic irony. We the audience observe this hybrid’s attempts to protect his humanity and escape the invisible beast that is his bloodline, and the curse that is laced within it. This internal battle is much more palpable in Antigone, where Antigone’s rebellion against Creon is, by extension, a rebellion against the state. And so we see in Antigone what the Leader calls “the same rough winds, the wild passion raging through the girl” (Antigone, 1022–1023). Antigone accomplished what Oedipus, in the end, could not: she disowned her ancestry and established herself as an undeniable individual.
Dramatic irony is also prominent in our study of Oedipus as the inheritor of some greater, societal need for destructive change. The existence of repressed impulses is discussed by Freud in his seminal analysis of the Oedipus complex. These impulses are the relics of “primeval dream material” that become submerged in the cumulative human effort to establish a successful society. Part of that effort is the adherence to a centralized religious institution, especially in a city like Thebes where the founder, Cadmus, was of divine descent. We can also see this in the “Ode to Man” speech in Antigone, where the Chorus sings, “When he weaves in / the laws of the land, and the justice of the gods / … he and his city rise high”(Antigone, 409–412). As such, gods such as Zeus and Apollo, who were gods of power and the arts, respectively, became the “ghosts of civilization”, the symbols of what were expected of humanity. Furthermore, Zeus himself was one of Oedipus’s and Antigone’s ancestors. With all these sources of pressure and expectation accumulating on the leaders of this society, one could argue that Apollo’s prophecy was a subconscious attempt at release by Jocasta and Laius, a sort of mutiny against the endless voyage of society. There is much irony in having this prophecy come from Apollo, a distinctive god of the arts and society. In a sense it only heightens the sense of desperation when a god of such societal importance is the bearer of such mutinous commands. Laius and Jocasta, being descendants of the line of Cadmus and heads of state, consciously feared “Apollo’s words” and treated the prophecy as externally commanded, rather than internally desired, resulting in Oedipus’s abandonment. After all, to personally acknowledge the validity of these impulses would be to cast asunder the respected order of society. So how does this relate to dramatic irony? The audience may have understood the power of released emotions, or catharsis, especially in highly structured societies, since the very act of watching a play served the same emotional need. The acknowledgement in Athenian society of the importance of public performance as a means of emotional release led to the founding of the Dionysia, the very place where Oedipus Rex was first performed. One can also look at the Chorus’s pleas when they sing: “Lord Dionysus, god of the dance / that shakes the land of Thebes, now lead the way!”(Antigone, 171–172). Because the audience likely knew of the importance of catharsis in a structured society, they also likely understood the danger of repression. If one treats the prophecy as a subconscious, impulsive attempt at escape from civilization, one may naturally equate it with self-mutilation, or even attempt at suicide, on a societal level. Indeed, the outcome of Oedipus’s terrible fate was the collapse of society as Polynices and Eteocles fought for the throne. The organism that is Thebes nearly perished as a consequence of Laius’s and Jocasta’s fearful impulse, as a consequence of their mere humanity. Of course, one cannot help but think of the subsequent suicides of Jocasta and her daughter Antigone. While the specifics of each suicide varies, they share the common attempt at achieving individuality in an overbearing society.
Throughout Oedipus Rex, Sophocles makes use of strong parallels between Oedipus’s physical condition and the condition of the state. This ties back to the notion of Oedipus being an organ in the Theban organism, with changes in the organ projecting outward to the system as a whole. As a result of his foot-binding at a very early age, Oedipus was permanently disfigured. This carries great symbolic significance since the limping Oedipus bears on his shoulders the fear of the parents who bound his feet. In other words, his physical condition is a reflection of his parents’ conviction that Apollo’s prophecy will carry out. Building off of the last paragraph, we can also interpret the bound feet to be a symbol of his parents’ impulsive attempt at destructive change, to break the cycle of power which surges through the Cadmian bloodline. As such, Oedipus’s existence becomes even more dichotomous than his parents and the tension between his individual resistance to what he calls “fate” and his subconscious obligation to the state becomes even greater. His escape from Corinth, and the long journey it entailed, must have been a constant reminder of his parent’s actions as his limping would have made difficult most of his journey. Of course, at the time, he had no knowledge of his parents’ actions nor did he know who his real parents were. It is no surprise that most paintings depicting Oedipus, such as the famous works by Gustave Moreau and Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, show him bearing a walking stick. His journey from Corinth to Thebes, which would normally be considered the noble return of a prince to his homeland, bears the dangerous seed of destruction within Oedipus himself. And so it sits, taking root within the Theban organism without word, only bursting the surface when Oedipus is king, respected by all and at the pinnacle of achievement. He lives in the supreme illusion of free-will, moderated and kept in check by the lies of his existence and the unconscious domination of the organ over the “I”. When Oedipus hears of the oracular vision at Delphi from Creon, he is still sure of himself. When Teiresias tells Oedipus that “You yourself are the pollution of this country”(Oedipus Rex, Scene 1, 135), Oedipus reacts as a confident human being: resistance, annoyance, anger, fury. “You dare say that! Can you possibly think you have / Some way of going free, after such insolence?”(Oedipus Rex, Scene 1, 136–137). The seed of destruction is buried deep within him, covered up by feelings of pride from his victory over the Sphinx. In fact, this is all he can talk about, this and his power on the throne. He passionately responds to Teiresias’s accusations by asking “When that hellcat the Sphinx was performing here, / What help were you to these people?”(Oedipus Rex, Scene 1, 174–175). He then suspects Creon of treason. These feelings of pride are not surprising, as they concealed the inner torment of his existence. As king, he need not feel any doubt. In his mind, he had escaped his fate. His “I” had won and to imply otherwise would be to cut open deep wounds. Of course, through dramatic irony the audience knows that his wounds have been open for many years, festering all the while. In fact, Oedipus’s true awakening can be said to have occurred when the messenger spoke to him of his ankles, to which Oedipus responded, “Ah, stranger, why do you speak of that childhood pain?”(Oedipus Rex, Scene 3, 113). After a near fanatic search for the truth, which Oedipus desperately seeks as a remedy to his torment, we reach the scene of Oedipus’s final mutilation. Oedipus feels utter guilt and grief for having ruined the family name and the honor of Thebes. He seeks to consign himself to the realm of darkness so as to avoid gazing upon the people and city he had disgraced. His actions represent the carrying out of his parents’ desire for destructive change: his existence represents the undoing of civilization. Even in the end, his self-mutilation propagates throughout the Theban organism. It results in blindness on a societal scale, with conflict igniting between Oedipus’s two sons. Creon’s rule is a further extension of this blindness as he inherits the role of king, the same major organ which Oedipus once represented and which we mutilated at the end of his reign. Creon’s rule suffers from this injury. This may explain why Creon’s attitude towards governing changed so significantly between Oedipus Rex and Antigone. His blindness, Oedipus’s final curse on society, is the perfect setting for Antigone to bring positive change to society. Antigone’s attack on Creon and his tyrannical government is an attack on the corrupt organ of power. Through her retaliation and subsequent suicide, Antigone provides the audience and all of Thebes a form of emotional purging or catharsis. The bile and anxiety built up as a result of centuries of impulse-repression burst because of Oedipus and his parents. It was Antigone who sealed the wound and brought about renewed order to society.
Throughout both Oedipus Rex and Antigone, Sophocles makes use of the symbolism of space to explore Oedipus’s and Antigone’s relation to the state and to themselves. It is useful if we treat Oedipus Rex and Antigone as a single arc, beginning with the infant Oedipus on Mount Cithaeron and ending with Antigone’s death in the cave. There is a symbolic significance in this arc starting and ending in the natural world, as opposed to in the city and palace which their royal birthright would perhaps imply. Sophocles is likely trying to make the claim that the disorder embodied within Oedipus was borne of the chaotic natural world. It is also no coincidence that the hills and plains of the Greek countryside were frequent locations for Bacchic rituals, which were known for their passionate ecstasies. It is also worth noting that it is therefore not a coincidence that Laius and Jocasta left their son in the mountains. While it could have been a conscious effort to kill Oedipus, it could have also been a symbolic and emotional gesture: to liberate the future heir of the throne of Thebes from his bondage to society by immersing him in the landscape of chaos and unbounded freedom. Antigone committing suicide in the cave is also symbolic of the return to the natural world. In addition, it is likely a purposeful choice to have Oedipus born on a mountain with Antigone dying in a cave. A parallel between light and darkness and birth and death is established. The chain of mutiny against society has ended with Antigone, but as a result of its having existed, it is likely that Thebes will continue to survive into the future with renewed certainty and stability. If Oedipus’s and Antigone’s existence caused strife and unrest in society, it was only because subconscious discomforts and pressures by those living in society made it thus.
Oedipus Rex and Antigone present relevant psychological insights into what it means to be an individual living in society. As our societies continued to develop to much larger scales since the time of Sophocles, the relevance of the individual seems to decrease, verging on the inhumane and utter sterile “quanta” or “cell” of society. How does one exist in a simultaneous state of emotional depth and personal decay when among the masses? Oedipus is the consequence of our need to overthrow establishment, whatever that may entail. In our current society, the desire for change, any change, is becoming increasingly apparent. It is in the hopes of disturbing the apparent norms and expectations of society that the individual seeks to spread her wings. For many, this desire for change is so radical, so unlike us, that it exists only for a brief moment, followed by aching shame. What is this shame? Oedipus and Antigone show us that we are more loyal to the societal organism than we think. The multitude of the masses is so psychologically pervasive that one learns to embrace the collective consciousness before one’s own. This is the root of nationalism and fascism. And so, to doubt this super-organism is an act of mutiny, of treason. Oedipus existed in a state of false existence: his identity was slowly being consumed by the organ which he represented. All the while he considered himself liberated of his terrible fate. However, his very existence is infused with the corrupted seed of the Cadmian line. By re-inserting himself into the Theban organism, he infects the super-organism. Crops and offerings fail. The collective conscious slowly becomes infected with the knowledge of what Oedipus represents. Antigone represents the completion of the emotional cycle. By rebelling against the corrupted society which Oedipus left before his death, she is re-establishing order in a society struggling to accept the individuality of its components. Creon’s rule represents humanity’s grief and shame towards its own shortcomings. His iron fist is a sure sign of deep insecurities. Antigone tells Thebes, and the audience, that we must embrace freedom of expression in society in order to breath, in order for us to truly be human. It is only then that we prevail.
