Why Oedipus? Why Now?
Why Oedipus? Why Now?
Why Oedipus? Why now?
Aristotle stated that the purpose of tragedy is to arouse pity and fear.
If done well, the tragedy then cleanses or purges the watcher of that pity and fear. Today, we can describe ourselves as being ‘pent up’ or ‘frustrated’. When viewing a tragedy today, we often find ourselves feeling sad or crying which serves as a release of ‘pent up’ emotions and ‘frustrations.’ The Greeks had a word for this releasing, cleansing and purging- katharsis. It is the root of our English word ‘catharsis’. Apparently, our great contribution to the conversation was to change a letter.
Thousands of scholars have filled millions of pages exploring and defining catharsis. Here, we combine those explorations into two parts- 1) through experiencing fear and pity vicariously (really feeling those emotions) through art, our own anxieties are directed outward, and, 2) through sympathetic identification with the tragic protagonist, our insights and outlooks are enlarged.
Releasing the emotion and gaining insight. Catharsis.
This is why after a breakup we listen to the same song over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Even though listening to that song (or watching that movie, or staring at that photo, or reading that poem) wrecks us- turns us into emotional blobs- it also cleans out or insides so that we go on with our lives.
And the Greeks knew we needed to be cleaned out often because they knew that life could be bitter, unfair, painful and full of suffering. The Greek word for this feeling was –crappy. I totally just made that up, but I don’t think Oedipus would disagree.
In Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather (a highly recommended read) we meet a character called Susan. Susan’s grandfather is Death….yep, Death. That’s Mr. Death- the guy in the robes with a sickle. I really recommend this book. After having to stand in for Santa (in the book, Santa’s is known as the Hogfather (don’t you really want to read this book by now?), and Death is talking with his granddaughter Susan about the importance and function of people’s faith and belief. The conversation goes:
“All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
"So we can believe the big ones?"
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
"They're not the same at all!"
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"
MY POINT EXACTLY
“Or what’s the point?” asks Susan.
When we find suffering or pain in the world we naturally look for its cause. Not the cause as in my ‘tummy is all in knots from chicken nuggets and two bags of Skittles’, or ‘I’m grounded just because I cut off some (a lot) of my sister’s hair when she was sleeping’, or ‘these shoes are too tight but I’ll wear them anyway because they look great’. No. Those are simple. I mean the cause of The Big Stuff (echo, echo, echo): addiction, poverty, disease, starvation, abuse, death, etc. Causes that change life.
At points throughout history, volcanoes, earthquakes, floods, typhoons, plagues and disease (which have caused human suffering measured in the millions) have all been, at times, attributed to being caused by a higher power’s reaction to a human wrong.
I believe (and it’s just me, it’s not a Universal Truth Etched in Quarks in the Quantum Realm) that we need to believe that suffering has a reason. A cause. In the case of Oedipus, we may find ourselves saying, “If only he hadn’t…- gone to Delphi, tried to disobey the prophecy, defended himself on the road, loved his family and tried to save them by running away, been so prideful, loved and married someone, etc., etc., etc. We must believe that his suffering happened for a reason. And a reason that was based in and a response to something he did. A kind of ‘just reward’ or ‘just punishment.’
And I believe (again just me) that without that belief (just reward and punishment) we are left with something pretty awful- the possibility that suffering doesn’t just happen but will happen and often for no reason whatsoever. There are over 4,000 religions in the world and each one of those 4,000 religions addresses the idea of suffering. That’s how important and universally human our connection with suffering is.
And that’s what I believe Oedipus does well. Releasing the emotion and gaining insight. Catharsis.
Oedipus not only cleans out the junk drawer of emotions, but also reminds us of that need we all have to make sense of suffering.
People often ask, “Why this play now?” I’m left asking myself, “When is this play not relevant?” Braces, acne, break-ups, depression, family problems, loss of a pet, best friend moves away, ‘no dates- no friends- no fun’, ‘didn’t get into the school you needed to- wanted to- had to’, death… “Why?” “Why is this happening to me?” “What did I do?” Again, as Death pointed out, we believe (or need to believe) that there is some rightness in the universe by which we are judged. And when we suffer, seemingly without that rightness of reason, we ask ‘why?’… ‘why me?’
Sophocles has a very simple answer to the question of suffering:
If you live, you suffer.
Suffering comes for us all.
No one is ever free from pain.
Well…..
Gosh…
That’s kind of depressing.
Yep.
But as I said before, each of those 4,000 religions takes this question on. They must.
And for Oedipus, his suffering is not the end of his story, it’s only a part. In spite of his suffering, his life will go on. Just like Bethany Hamilton. Bethany, a professional surfer, lost her arm to a shark attack when she was thirteen. How do we make sense of the suffering she endured? Did her life end at this seeming pinnacle of suffering? Was there some great wrong that she was being punished for? Today, she is still surfing. A surfing mom happily married with a family. Do we define her by that single moment of suffering? A time that, understandably, most thought she would never get past? Do we define ourselves in our suffering? The chorus in Oedipus asks, “Is this all there is? Is this as good as it gets?”
In Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, when Frodo and Sam were all alone, when they were up against an army of evil, when they were near starving, freezing, exhausted, betrayed, had a finger bitten off, when they were at the lowest and most miserable moment in their lives… Tolkien has Sam say to Frodo:
It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going, because they were holding on to something… That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.
We’ve heard from Susan.
We’ve heard from Sophocles.
We’ve heard from Samwise.
But ultimately, it’s yourself that has to find an answer to this question of suffering.