Tension and Drama

What makes Oedipus a drama?

Oedipus the King is drama because it allows the audience to experience a completely alien situation while making them feel empathetic to the characters involved. Drama is both entertaining and involving, the audience is a part of the story but only for a short while. All of Greece could attend the theater. In fact, tickets were distributed to all citizens no matter what their wealth or age might be. Oedipus is similarly relatable to every member of the audience because it is so outlandish. Oedipus is “the man surest in mortal ways and wisest in the ways of God.” He saved his city from the sphinx. He is at the apex. Oedipus is noble, wise, strong, wealthy and royal.

“This is the king who solved the famous riddle
And towered up, most powerful of men.
No mortal eyes but looked on him with envy…”

The higher Oedipus sits, the farther he has to fall and it seems no one could sit higher than Oedipus. It is both the King’s grandiose stature and human qualities that entice the audience. Oedipus is proudly arrogant. The Greek’s would often use this aspect of someone’s nature as the tragic flaw; it is called hubris. He quickly angers, accuses, judges and abuses his powers as king when his reputation is threatened. He orders Teiresias to give him the fateful knowledge against Tieresias’s better judement, “you are bound to tell me.” When Tieresias concedes, only after Oedipus accuses him of the crime, Oedipus denounces his claims as lies. He proceeds to accuse his brother by marriage, Creon, of treachery. In every way, he looks for an alternate explanation for the truth he wished to blind himself from. Only when all his options are exhausted does he accept the truth the gods have given him. Then he indeed truly blinds himself from the evil of it.

“Most pitiful is this man’s story:
His fortunes are most changed, his state
Fallen to a low slave’s
Ground under bitter fate.”

From the loftiest of heights to the basest of lows, Oedipus’s disgrace makes for a dramatic exit.

Sophocles’s use of dramatic irony also serves as a defining aspect of this play. There is something interesting about beginning a story at its end. Sophocles creates a similar effect in his rendition of the traditional tale of Oedipus. The story of Oedipus’s misfortune must have been common knowledge for the audiences of 425 B.C.; the story is mentioned in passing in Homer’s Odyssey. In short, the audience knows the fate of the Oedipus before any actors take to the stage. This previous knowledge allows Sophocles to emphasize the details he, himself, has created for the drama and to create gripping dramatic irony. At points during the prologue, I couldn’t help but laugh. “Whoever killed King Laois might – who knows? – Decide at any moment to kill me as well. By avenging the murdered king I protect myself.” Oedipus’s ignorance proves to be slightly comedic. The prologue is littered with these promises of avengement. This irony creates tension for the audience that the characters in the play do not know yet. Because of tension cause by both the irony and Oedipus’s flaws, Oedipus can truly be considered a drama. (543)