Oedipus Journal #4

Discussion: Narrative Structure - How has the plot (not the story) been constructed? Are their parts? Is the plot circular? Subplots? How important/effective is the ending? Has everything been revealed by the end or are there unanswered questions? Does this matter? What period of time has been covered? Is time important?

The plot:

• Oedipus is a great king, but his city is not doing well. The people want to know why
• Lauis is dead, there is a rumor that whoever killed Lauis has cursed the city
• Oedipus, in order to save his city, is determined to find the cursed killer of Lauis
• Oedipus discovers that he killed his father and married his mother
• Jocasta (his mother/wife) kills himself, Oedipus blinds himself/waits to be exiled

This play is pretty short, and there aren't any subplots. It is pretty straight and to-the-point. It is interesting to think about how if the characters knew the truth (that Oedipus was the son of Lauis and Jocasta), none of this would have ever happened. Perhaps this is meant to show, on some level, that if we know the truth, good things happen to us and if we hide it, bad things will happen.

However, for this discussion I wanted to focus mainly on the ending of the play. By the end of the play, everything has been revealed, and that is why Oedipus' story comes to an end. The truth all being revealed is what brings Oedipus to his end. I have been tracking "the truth" for the plays, and I realized that the truth comes in two different forms.

• The truth being slowly revealed throughout the play
• The truth appearing in the text; characters talking about the truth

So in regards to the story, the truth (as far as I can tell) has been completely revealed to the characters towards the end of the play. This leads to Jocasta killing herself because the truth that she learns is so horrible, and Oedipus anticipates/hopes for his exile. I think that Oedipus' future not being revealed to the audience is meant to show us that we all know what should happen to Oedipus because of what he has done, or something to that extent. I also think that us not seeing the future clearly has something to do with the characters in the play not seeing clearly who they are and what they have done.