ENGL 103W Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Road Rage, Lightning, Sophocles
Document Summary
Oedipus presents this story so he escapes himself from blame. It"s good that he cares for the people of his kingdom but bad that he"s arrogant and calls them his children. People can be good-bad and bad-good: this just makes them human. Carl marx: men choose, but not in circumstances of their own choosing, this is similar to greek thinking. Oedipus is similar to normal people: sometimes he is insightful other times he is careless. Tragedy is an accumulation of choices that you"ve made. Aristotle had a great insight into tragedy because it"s an ordinary person with flaws and ordinary qualities that is a good subject for tragedy: not a saint or a villain. It is one thing to acknowledge we are all going to die. Miasma: the greeks would have seen oedipus as polluted. Remember the curse you are going to oedipus"