Blog #1 on Oedipus Rex

Here is your first blog for English 102--Subject: Oedipus Rex.  Remember that you will be submitting an essay March 21 (right before break) on Oedipus so you may think of the blog as your first draft.  The blog should be between 300-400 words and should address one of the questions below. You should quote from the play 2-3 times in support of your claim.  If you are concerned about how to map out an essay, please see page 8 of our coursepak (Anatomy of an Essay).  For the blog I just want you to make a claim and support it.  When you quote from the play, put author and line numbers in parentheses: (Sophocles 250).  Please complete this blog by Wednesday March 13, midnight, so we can discuss your ideas on Thursday, March 14.

Possible Topics:

1.  The character of Oedipus: what are his strengths?  what are his weaknesses?  How are his strongest qualities also those that hurt him, mislead him, blind him?  How does he change?  What must he learn?

2.  How do different women (or female figures) in the play function?  Trace the progression of Oedipus's understanding of the women who lead and mislead him.  Note that the oracle at Delphi (who speaks for Apollo) is a woman so you have three women to consider: the sphinx, the oracle, Jocasta.

3.  Throughout the play, there is an implicit and at times explicit contrast between wisdom and reason.  Oedipus's failure to recognize this distinction is the source of much of his blindness.  Explore the contrast between reason and wisdom in the play.

4.  Imagery of darkness and light fills the play: Oedipus says "I will bring what is dark to light."   He begins with a keen eye and ends up blind.  Yet if light is a metaphor for wisdom, when does he have the greatest wisdom--at the beginning or at the end?  Think through how the metaphors of light and darkness work in the play.  Make a claim and support it.

5.  The plague:  disease and pollution are the framework through which Oedipus comes to understand himself and his situation.  What does Oedipus need to understand about pollution and its cure?  How is he the doctor, the disease, the healer?

6.  How is Oedipus's name and what it means an interesting and ironic symbol? Connect this symbol to Oedipus's character and to the action of the play.  How does he misuse, misunderstand his feet?

7.  Irony and the structure of drama: contrast Oedipus at the opening of the play to Oedipus at the end: consider the numerous ways in which he has become the opposite of what he was: king to beggar; innocent to guilty; insightful to blind . . .and yet we might say he is better in the end.  Why?

8.  Different characters in the play have different attitudes towards the gods.  Examine these--what is the difference between Oedipus and Creon; Oedipus and Jocasta?  What does the chorus think?  How does Sophocles lead us to think about the gods in the end?

Important: if you don't like any of these topics, feel free to create your own.  The goal is to make a claim about character, imagery, or dramatic structure and support it with evidence from the play.