Ari Kandel
Sophocles’
Oedipus : Trapped by Taboo
"But surely I must fear my mother's
bed?"
--Oedipus
Tyrannus, line 576
When Oedipus asks this question of his wife
Iocasta, he is unaware of the depth of his words. The Messenger has just
told him about the death of King Polybos of Corinth, Oedipus’ supposed father.
Now free in his mind from the threat of Apollo’s prophesy that he would kill
his father, Oedipus here wishes to confirm with his wife that, as his supposed
mother (the queen of Corinth) is still alive, he must still take care lest he
sleep with her, as the oracle also foretold.
But his words ask a more basic question as
well: Why is the prediction that he will sleep with his mother so horribly ominous
and repugnant?
Among all the permissiveness of ancient Greek
culture, incest remains a fatally reprehensible offense. Throughout Greek
literature, patricide/matricide also seems to be an equally odious crime (see
Aeschylus’ Oresteia).
Oedipus is actually relieved and happy about
the natural death of his supposed father Polybos, as in his mind this frees him
from the worry that he will someday kill his father. It is these taboos,
against incest and against parent murder, that are the main motivations behind
the story of Oedipus Tyrannus. Ironically, in the play, these taboos do not
prevent moral disintegration as they are intended to do, but directly bring it
about.
The theories presented in Freud’s Totem and Taboo help to explain the
motivations behind the attitudes in Oedipus Tyrannus. Freud holds that all human males innately
harbor not a natural aversion to incest, but the opposite: an instinctive
sexual attraction to the mother.
Freud says, “[The experiences of
psychoanalysis] have taught . . . that the first sexual impulses of the young
are regularly of an incestuous nature” (Totem and Taboo, p. 160).
Freud also asserts that each male harbors
ambivalent feelings towards his father. On one hand, he loves, looks up to, and
respects his father. On the other, with the awakening of sexual feelings which
initially naturally fix themselves towards the mother, he comes to hate his
father as a rival and oppressor.
Combining these results of his pioneering
psychoanalysis and the theory of the “primal
horde” based observations of the social structure of the higher apes, Freud
suggests an explanation of the source of the taboos against incest and parent
murder. At the dawn of humanity, people lived in groups dominated by the most
powerful male, the father, who held a sexual monopoly over the group.
When each of his sons grew to an age where he would challenge the father's
authority in order to get a piece of the action, so to speak, the father drove
him away from the group. After several sons had been so treated, they decided
to cooperate in order to overthrow the father and get the females, their
mothers, for themselves. With their combined strength, they killed the father.
However, the hatred they felt towards their father now gave way to their other
feelings towards him, and they felt guilt for their actions. They were also
faced with the probability of subsequent conflict between each other as each
tried to take the murdered father’s place. So, as Freud writes,
"What
the fathers’ presence had formerly prevented they themselves now
prohibited in the psychic situation of “subsequent obedience” which we
know so well from psychoanalysis. They undid their deed by declaring that the
killing of the father ... was not allowed, and renounced the fruits of their
deed by denying themselves the liberated [mothers]. Whoever disobeyed became
guilty of the two only crimes which troubled primitive society” (Totem &Taboo,
p. 185).
Given this origin, as the original two moral laws of humanity, it is no wonder that the
taboos against incest and parent murder are felt so deeply by members of
subsequent civilizations such as the ancient Greek. By the time of Oedipus,
these laws are likely so internalized and natural in human society that a man
raised in this society probably experiences them as what feels like an innate
aversion to incest and parent murder that usually far overpowers the two
desires of Freud’s “Oedipal complex.”
In Oedipus Tyrannus, these taboos manipulate the characters in strange ways
into a plot that temporarily turns Thebes into the seat of a new primal horde.
At Oedipus’ birth his parents, terrified by the Delphic oracle’s prophesy that
their son will violate the prehistoric taboos on their heads, send him away to
die, just as the primal father sent away his sons when he felt threatened by
them. The royal family of Corinth then raises Oedipus and inculcates him with
all the proper values of Greek society, including of course the internalized
taboo against incest and parent slaughter.
This aversion eventually forces Oedipus to
leave Corinth when he finds out about the prophesy. Unbeknownst to him, his
fear of violating the taboo actually drives him to break it! Had he not fled
Corinth due to his great fear of killing his supposed father and sleeping with
his supposed mother, he would likely (the absolute power of the Fates aside)
never have met his unknown father King Laius at the crossroads and killed him,
nor saved Thebes from the Sphinx and received his mother’s hand in marriage as
his reward. Indeed, had King Laius and Queen Iocasta not been so afraid of the
implications of the prophecy as to attempt to banish and kill their son, they
likely (again, Fate aside!) could have raised him in Thebes as any other
prince, imbued him like any other son early on with the taboos against incest
and patricide, and lived happily ever after. Oedipus would have known them as
his parents, and thus would probably never have dreamed of committing such
crimes against them.
The whole tragedy as it is occurs as a
result of Oedipus’ not knowing who his real parents are, not because of any
moral shortcoming on Oedipus’ part. However, in the end his actions appear to
himself and his fellow citizens more loathsome even than those of any primal
brother, as he unwittingly carries the primal brothers’ plan to complete
fulfillment, displacing the father and winning the mother. The deep-rootedness
of the taboos force him into supreme guilt and make him loathe and torture
himself to a greater degree than probably any other character in literature.
Sophocles
seems to have written Oedipus Tyrannus to present the most horrifying tragedies
imaginable for any human being. Although he could not possibly have had
knowledge of Freud’s psychoanalysis or Darwin’s theories of human evolution,
his own insight into the nature of humanity allowed him to figure out mankind’s
deepest universal fears an sensibilities. Indeed, his unscientific, artistic
insight seems closer to the truth than several of the scientific theories
rejected by Freud in Totem and Taboo (see the theories of MacLennan,
Westermarck, etc., T&T p. 155-164) which suggest alternate, often
biological, causes of the incest taboo. Sophocles’ characters show no innate
biological abhorrence of incest and parent slaughter. Only the societal taboos
figure in their tragedies. Indeed, Iocasta seems content to live with her and
Oedipus' breaking of the taboos when she realizes the truth before Oedipus
does. She says, when Oedipus is near to finding out the truth about his
background,
“Why ask of whom he
spoke? Don’t give it heed; nor try to keep in mind what has been said. It
will be wasted labour. I beg you – do not hunt this out – I beg you, if you
have any care for your own life.What I am suffering is enough”
(Oedipus
Tyrannus, lines 1056-62).
Iocasta would prefer that no one ever find
out about the crimes that have been committed by Oedipus and her. Although she
admits to “suffering” moral pangs, these pangs do not strike deeply enough to
unbalance her entire being. What she most fears is the public unveiling of
their crimes.
This is the same guilt that any normal
criminal feels when he/she breaks any societal law: some remorse depending on
the criminal’s moral fiber, and fear of getting caught! It is not the human
creature’s allergi reaction to the violation of an inborn reflex.
It seems that Sophocles knew, as Freud did,
that the taboo against incest does not stem from any innate human instinct, as
many have suggested, but from primal laws of human society. Oedipus’ rage and
guilt for his actions comes about as a result of both the personal and public
realization of his crimes. We may speculate about whether he would have reacted
like Iocasta had he been more perceptive and, like her, found out the truth
before anyone else.
The way
that Sophocles treats the primal taboos in Oedipus Tyrannus questions their
exact nature and validity. Far from preventing discord and strife as they were
theoretically intended to do among the primal brothers, their power actually
brings about the tragedy in the play.
Societal standards, including taboos, change
alongside culture. Will the taboos that formed the origin of all morality and
religion someday outlive their usefulness???
πηγή άρθρου: Columbia University
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Ari Kandel,
“ Sophocles’ Oedipus: Trapped by Taboo ”,
Columbia
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