Oedupis Rex

Oedipus Rex
by Sophocles

We have just concluded reading Oedipus Rex in class, and I am struck by some disturbing connections to this question of original thoughts. In the play abundant in dramatic irony, the audience finds themselves thinking pages ahead of Oedipus in every scene, however when he rashly decides to gauge his own eyes out with the brooches worn by his wife moments after her suicide, we are shocked.

Here is the character who we had followed the whole story and predicted his every move, but in the face of unimaginable tragedy, we are taken off guard. This makes me wonder if the origination of the rare unique thought is in this type of situation: tragedy. Maybe in moments of emotional irrationality and uncontrollable pain those virgin thoughts emerge, because there is nothing shaping our rational. There are no social norms or active thinking to draw from previous experiences or references. We are alone in the pain, and it is here that shocking and free thoughts are given the space to emerge.

Oedipus laments, blindly, "For I am sick in my own being, sick in my origin," and while we are drawn to the connections to his incestuous relationship with his mother, we now must question whether his being 'sick in his own being' allows for these moments of craziness, and, essentially, his seemingly original thoughts.