The Oedipus Cycle

The Oedipus Cycle

The characters in Sophocles’ The Oedipus Cycle: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone all seem to show complex Freudian concepts. Strangely enough, Sophocles was the only great writer during his time to ever tie in Freudian concepts in his work. In the first part of the trilogy, Oedipus Rex, we learn that the mighty king Oedipus, ruler of Thebes, has fallen from power and now must live with his horrific fate. In Oedipus at Colonus, Oedipus wanders around Athens, blind and in exile. Fortunately, his daughters Antigone and Isemes are there to guide him until Zeus takes him away. In the third story, Antigone, the brave daughter makes a bold move that causes a downward spiral in all of the main characters. Beginning with Oedipus Rex and then on to Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone, Sophocles not only shows his ironclad grip on creating emotions in the reader, but also shows his fascination with psychological lessons.

Sophocles’ use of dialogue instead of a traditional writing style makes the reader work a bit harder to comprehend the emotions of his characters. In these dialogues, he uses strong two-sided arguments that provoke a certain character’s psychological traits. For example, when Antigone “illegally” buries her brother Polynices, she gets herself into an argument with Creon, who condemns both Antigone and Isemes to death. This conflict evokes Antigone’s pride and moral values, which lies in the ego and sometimes the super-ego parts of the brain. All of the significant characters in The Oedipus Cycle show a dramatic downfall in the way they act; how much they continue down this downward grade depends on their strengths and weaknesses in each part of their mind: the ego, super-ego, and the id.

The id part of the brain is one that lives “unconsciously” and simply put, is the hunger for gratification. The ego and super-ego, on the other hand, are more of a balancing beam, where the ego is the defense of one’s own drives, morals, and realities, and the super-ego a “father character” that maintains the sense of morality and the prohibition of taboos. All of the characters in The Oedipus Cycle have a very active id area in their brains, as shown by their yearning for rebellion. Their craving for rebellion is most easily seen in the prides of Oedipus, Creon, and Antigone, who pay for their needs with their lives: Oedipus’ stubbornness prevents him from listening to Tiresias’ forewarnings and ends up gouging his own eyes after knowing the truth; Creon’s pride prevents him from seeing through his position on the throne and seals away the fates of those he loves; Antigone’s pride forbade her from not living up to her promise, and killed herself for it. Sophocles focuses on the minds of headstrong, powerful, elite characters that know precisely what they desire, but not what effects their desire will cause.

Sophocles’ use of complicated, irony-laden arguments in The Oedipus Cycle captivates the reader and subconsciously forbids him to refrain from reading. From the use of merciless gods who rain down plagues to the murder of one’s own father followed by breeding with one’s own mother and even killing oneself to cause pain and death in others, chances are that even a Greek god would be highly interested.

Sophocles uses quite a bit of irony in The Oedipus