(Oedipus) Solving the Riddle?

Lorelei Lilburn: Isn't the riddle a metaphor of the life of every human being who lives to old age? But Oedipus's life up to the end of the play IS covered by that metaphor. Although the play takes place in the course of one day, probably before he is thirty, the narrated flashbacks cover his life up to that point, and at the end he's a blind man feeling his way with his "third foot." Also, since the answer is "man," wouldn't it be somewhat ironic for ANYONE who solved it? But its special irony for Oedipus is that solving the riddle puts him in the position of fulfilling the second part of the Oracle's prophecy. It told him he would do two things, and he has already unknowingly done one of them by the time he arrives at Thebes. There, when he solves the riddle and rids the city of the Sphinx, the people make him king, with marriage to the widowed queen as part of the arrangement--and we know who she is."Archetypal tragic man"? We could see Oedipus as a helpless vic! tim of Fate, running straight into his own fate even as he tries to flee from it; but a tragic HERO is one who brings his downfall upon himself through his own flaws. So consider: Why did Oedipus go to the Oracle in the first place? And what did it tell him he would do? Then, how did he try to prevent those events from happening, and what did he do on his way away from there? (See any inconsistency? Any failure to think?) Finally, think again about what came of his solving the riddle. Considering the prophecy he had recently received, why on earth would he have married an older woman? Yet it evidently took several years for all the pieces to fall into place....Show more

Weldon Totaro: The thrown away child. The strong man killing but ignorant even knowing. the old man held up by a daughter as a daughter in tragedy and her death.