Though there has been much debate over who is actually the protagonist in Sophocles’ tragic play Oedipus Rex, the general consensus among scholars is that Oedipus himself stars as the protagonist in this play as a part of his role as the tragic hero. “Rather than configuring Oedipus as an archetypal paradigm of the protagonist, we might note that the very category “protagonist” has a specific origin and history. The “first actor” in Greek drama, the protagonist is ushered in, significantly, only in juxtaposition with the “second” actor, deuteragonist, and …the “third” actor, tritagonist” (Woloch). It is interesting to note that Sophocles introduced the idea of the tritagonist in order to widen the dramatic totality of the piece. Traditionally, the protagonist of the story would be the first character to interact with the chorus, the deuteragonist, the second actor to appear, and the tritagonist the third, which is as they appear in Oedipus Rex, lending more proof to the argument that Oedipus is indeed the protagonist of this tale. As a character, for all the intelligence that he displays, Oedipus is still unable to escape the fate that was foretold prior to his conception. In the early stages of the play, Oedipus is presented as a highly intelligent ruler who has the best intentions toward his subjects as well as to his family. Sadly, despite his intentions, Oedipus is still a product of his fate and his every step works against him to drive him closer to his disastrous fate where he unknowingly kills his father and marries his mother, culminating in Oedipus blinding himself and requesting his own exile.
Oedipus first truly gains the audience’s respect as he defeats the riddle of the Sphinx on his way to discover who his family is. “What is it that is of itself two-footed, three-footed, and four-footed?” (Siculus) Sadly, this triumph occurs after Oedipus unknowingly kills his father Laius who he believes is part of a band of three road bandits. As Oedipus goes on to Thebes to claim his prize of the throne as king and marry the widowed Jocasta, the audience bemoans the fact that this insightful, well-favored leader is doomed to live out the fate set before him prior to his birth. As a ruler, Oedipus is extremely insightful and decisive, very often a few steps ahead of the wants and needs of his subjects (Woloch). For instance when faced with the evils of a plague, Oedipus anticipates the worries that his people will bring to him and goes ahead with plans to help solve the problem, such as sending a man ahead to consult with an oracle in order to learn the best way to effectively handle the situation to facilitate the most positive outcome. Despite the fact that his actions are meant to bring about the most positive outcome for his people, Oedipus’s actions, particularly the in-depth investigation that he launches into the murder of Laius, are actually what bring about the tragedy in his own life.
After the death of Laius and Oedipus’ subsequent defeat of the Sphinx who had laid siege to the city of Thebes after the death of its ruler, the people of Thebes concluded the inquiry into the death of Laius without reaching any real conclusions other than the knowledge that he was murdered. As the city was still in mourning for the previous king, Oedipus decided that it would be a gesture of goodwill on his part to conduct his own investigation into the murder. “Then I myself should go back and begin at the beginning to bring the dark past to light once more. For Phoebus has shown worthy concern, and you, too, have shown just care for the dead. And now I also, as is right, will lend my support to avenging this crime against this land and the god as well” (Sophocles). Had he simply left the entire ordeal alone he may have lived in peace as king of Thebes and husband of Jocasta. As it were, Oedipus insisted personally on the investigation which led to his learning that he was the son that Laius had ordered be put to death and that he was personally responsible for Laius’ death. The man who was once so intelligent and so bent on doing good in his kingdom was suddenly a curse even unto himself, a horror that Oedipus was destined to never recover from. Oedipus tries to be a virtuous leader, constantly seeking with the best of intentions for his subjects as well as consistently seeking out the truth, though it is the last preoccupation which leads to his inevitable downfall as the truth does not, in this case, set anyone free, but binds all of the characters, Oedipus included, in a cycle of horror and misfortune.
Though Oedipus is aware of his tragic fate from prior to the beginning of the play, he still cannot avoid it, though he takes great steps to do so, including leaving his home for the foreign land of Thebes so that he may avoid slaying his father and taking his mother as his wife. The actions that he takes to avoid his fate are actually the ones that cause it to occur. “Loxias once prophesied that I was destined to be joined in wedlock to my own mother and to shed the blood of my father with my own hands. It was for this reason that I settled long ago in a land far from my native Corinth” (Sophocles). One of the great tragedies of Oedipus’ life is that many of the horrible things that befell him could have been avoided if it were not for a simple miscommunication. For instance, when he meets Laius at the fork in the road where Oedipus was driven off of the road by Laius and his men, leading to Laius’ subsequent death, the whole unpleasant matter could have been avoided if the two men had but spoken to each other as the reason for the trip to the oracle was that each man was seeking the other. Oedipus also shows his rashness in action in first his immediate dispatch of “justice” against Laius and his travelling companions when they disregard Oedipus on the road, as well as in his promises to the kingdom concerning the punishment due for the death of the previous king. “Words bring no fear to a man who feels no terror in his crime” (Sophocles). These bold words come back in short order to haunt Oedipus as he learns that he is in fact the man that he seeks. “One man cannot be the same as many” (Sophocles). Unfortunately for Oedipus he was in fact two men, the one that he believed he was, the hero, and the one that he had inadvertently become, the traitorous son.
Oedipus as a protagonist has mesmerized the world for many years, the great tragedy of his life striking a note of horror in our minds. Oedipus is a very human character, who despite his knowledge and good intentions, turns out to be the very monster that he seeks. It is a fear of all man that we will one day become the thing that we most fear, a fear that is exploited in Dante’s Divine Comedy, a place where Oedipus finds himself at the end of the play though rather than being punished for his sins in the afterlife he is met with them here on earth, the place that many scholars believe to be purgatory. In Dante’s hell, Oedipus would have been the greatest of sinners, having proven himself to inadvertently be a traitor to not only the kingdom that he governed but also to his family to whom he brought a significant amount of tragedy which was carried on through his children born of incest. Perhaps rather than the Sphinx spouting her riddle, she should have quoted the inscription above the gates of hell for Oedipus as a warning to the unlucky man “Through me the way into the suffering city, through me the way to the eternal pain, through me the way that runs among the lost…Abandon every hope, who enter here” (Alighieri). Freud found Oedipus to be an attractive character, recognizing in him the darkest reaches of the human condition. Freud’s study of humanity and of the character Oedipus led him to develop his theory of childhood sexuality known widely as the Oedipus complex wherein a child is assumed from an early age to love one parent in an almost incestual way while growing to detest the other parent, specifically with regard to male children. Freud believed that this tendency exits in all children but was more prevalent in those who already suffered from one of many types of mental disease (Freud). On the ill fate of the character Freud comments “His fate moves us only because it might have been our own, because the oracle laid upon us before our birth the very curse which rested upon him” (Freud). This reasoning is why the character of Oedipus continues to endure as one of the most tragic protagonists of any literary age as well as one of the most horrifying because the very things that Oedipus experienced are some of the ones that we fear most in ourselves. “Thus, since we all are mortal, consider even a man’s final day on earth and do not pronounce him happy until he has crossed the finish line of life without the pain of suffering” (Sophocles).
Works Cited
Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. Toronto: Everyman’s Publishing Group, 1995.
Freud, Sigmund. “The Material and Sources of Dreams.” Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. New York: Avon, 1980. Chapter 5 102-130.
Reiss, Timothy. “Transforming Polities and Self.” Felski, Rita. Rethinking Tragedy. New York: JHU Press, 2008. 263-286.
Siculus, Diodorus. “Oedipus and Sphinx.” Hendricks, Rhonda. Classical Gods and Heros. New York: Perennial, 2004. 107-108.
Sophocles. “Oedipus the King.” Hendricks, Rhonda. Classical Gods and Heros. New York: Perennial, 2004. 109-152.
Woloch, Alex. “Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex and the Prehistory of the Protagonist.” Woloch, Alex. The One vs. The Many. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. 319-336.
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