“Greek tragedy shows good people being ruined because of things that just happen to them,
things that they do not control.” – Martha Nussbaum
Response Essay
(Based on the play “Oedipus the king” by Sophocles)
CHORUS: Pride breeds the tyrant violent pride, gorging, crammed to bursting with all that is overripe and rich with ruin— clawing up to the heights, headlong pride crashes down the abyss—sheer doom! (965)
These lines forebode the fate for Oedipus as he falls deeper into despair and keeps marching towards a tragic outcome. I agree with parts of Prof. Nussbaum’s argument. However, I feel there is a sense of fatalistic self-destructive actions on part of the characters, which lead me to refine the statement as follows –
Greek tragedy shows good people being ruined because of things that they do to themselves, things that they do not control.
People are drawn to tragic fates like moths to a flame, only to perish in the self-inflicted intensity of the outcomes.
Let’s examine the first part of Prof. Nussbaum’s assertion about “good” people. Are they really good people? Is Oedipus a good person even after killing someone in a fight along the roadside? Are Laius and Jocasta good people even after they decide to have a servant leave a newborn on a mountainside to die? Looked at from a current perspective, these would be heinous acts. But in the context of the times these people lived in and their value systems, those would be justifiable actions. We must avoid judgment based on modern sensibilities. If we put those aside, we see that they are good people. So we can accept that part of the statement.
Let’s look at each character to see how their words and actions can be used to support the modified statement.
Oedipus – A tragic character at the center of the narrative. When the play opens we find Oedipus already in a state of mind where he is going to take every step to find the truth, which will lead to his ultimate downfall –
OEDIPUS: I curse myself as well . . . if by any chance
he proves to be an intimate of our house,
here at my hearth, with my full knowledge,
may the curse I just called down on him strike me! (285)
He has cursed himself in this proclamation. Little does he know how true this fact will be. At this point he is so blinded by declaring his intentions to find and punish Laius’ killer that he does not see the tragic outcome.
TIRESIAS: I pity you, flinging at me the very insults each man here will fling at you so soon. (425)
Oedipus has invited the blind soothsayer Tiresias to shed light on the predicament. In this scene the king goads him to reveal what he knows. Upon his insistence, when Tiresias does exclaim that the king is himself the killer of Laius, Oedipus lashes out at him. In his desire to understand the truth and prove himself the ultimate puzzle solved, the king is once again inviting a terrible fate.
OEDIPUS: “You are fated to couple with your mother, you will bring a breed of children into the light no man can bear to see— you will kill your father, the one who gave you life!” I heard all that and ran (875)
This passage is where Oedipus recalls how he fled Corinth. After hearing the prophecy, he chooses the action that feels right – running away from his parents to avoid tragedy. Yet, later we see that this very action leads him to confront his birth father and eventually kill him during the journey to Thebes.
OEDIPUS: Courage! Even if my mother turns out to be a slave, and I a slave, three generations back, you would not seem common (1165)
Here the king is concerned about his ancestry being revealed as humble and the queen rejecting him. He keeps insisting on finding the truth about his birth, only to try and prove that he does indeed come from royal lineage. This will reveal the facts around the shepherd deciding not to kill the infant that was handed to him by Jocasta.
Jocasta – the queen of Thebes. She has married Oedipus after he successfully defends the city from the curse of the Sphinx. She loves him dearly and takes actions to not dig up the past However, each action drives the king to more desperation.
JOCASTA: My baby no more murdered his father than Laius suffered—
his wildest fear—death at his own son’s hands. (795)
So much for prophecy. It’s neither here nor there. From this day on, I wouldn’t look right or left. (945)
In the scenes above, Jocast is trying to do the right thing by trying to prove to Oedipus that prophecies are baseless. It had been foretold that her son would kill his father, but she avoided that fate completely by having the child abandoned on a mountain top. In doing so, she has in fact revealed to Oedipus the very secret of his birth and having been raised in Corinth.
In an earlier episode, Jocast and Laius decide to have their newborn child perish on the slopes of Mount Cithaeron rather than risk the prophecy of him killing his father. In trying to avoid a bad fate, they are doing themselves a huge harm. But they are unable to prevent these actions.
Shepherd – a faithful servant in the court of King Laius who in his mind does the right thing by not abandoning a newborn to die.
SHEPHERD: I pitied the little baby, master, hoped he’d take him off to his own country, far away, but he saved him for this, this fate. If you are the man he says you are, believe me, you were born for pain (1305)
By this action he has unleashed a sequence of events that will eventually lead to a plague in Thebes and untold sorrow to the house of Laius
CHORUS: Now as we keep our watch and wait the final day, count no man happy till he dies, free of pain at last. (1680)
We see that the people in this tragedy are fated to fail. The more they try to do the right things, the more they are ruined – Greek tragedy shows good people being ruined because of things that they do to themselves, things that they do not control.
Works Cited
- Sophocles, “The Three Theban Plays: Antigone, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus”, Translated by Robert Fagles, Penguin Classics, © 1984