Why does tiresias grow angry with oedipus

But, no matter how he against the fate his acts already brought the prophecy to life. Although, Oedipus attempt to escape the fate, this is ironic to the audience that the tragic outcome of the story cannot be escaped, also his overconfidence and rashness caused his fate …show more content… When Oedipus upon arriving at the fork, he was accidently killed all the attackers.

Laius was the ruler of Thebes before the present King Oedipus and was supposedly killed during a journey by a group of robbers. The gods at Delphi threaten that unless the murderer is caught and tried, Thebes will continue to suffer. This is the background against which the entire drama unfolds. The present king of Thebes, Oedipus, firmly resolves the find the murderer and prosecute him.

He prohibits his people from withholding any information about the man in question. He labels him a villain and a conspirator along with Creon. Later, the angry Tiresias leaves, warning that Oedipus will cause his. Get Access. Satisfactory Essays. Oedipus the King Words 2 Pages. Oedipus the King. Read More. Good Essays. Powerful Essays. Pride in Oedipus and Othello Words 4 Pages. Pride in Oedipus and Othello.

As Culpeper points out:. This does not stop human beings from attributing intentions and states of minds to other human beings, mostly on the basis of their actions and words. This mental faculty is called Theory of Mind ToM ; it is an endowment peculiar to the human species. As Zunshine notes:. A growing corpus of research focuses on ToM in ancient and modern fiction.

ToM focuses on long narrative and dialogic sequences. When a story is communicated to an audience of readers, spectators, etc. ToM is thus crucial for these approaches politeness theory, conversation analysis, possible-world theory , which are often applied one by one rather than combined. The possible-world theory is especially useful for interpreting texts in which fate and prophecies play a part, such as Oedipus the King.

Is the storyworld of the play totally determined by fate? Or is it only partially determined? How can knowledge of future events and freedom coexist?

And what do characters think about their own freedom of action? These questions will be explored in section 3. After many years in a department, a friend of mine moved to a different academic institution. Culpeper, in one of the most important contributions to this topic, distinguishes between affective, coercive, and entertaining impoliteness.

Oedipus and Tiresias, in their quarrel, accuse each other of the gravest crimes but fail to understand each other. They act and speak in a way that has been judged incongruous by many interpreters. So much ignorance in Oedipus and Jocasta is only a crude artifice of the poet, who, to give his play a reasonable length, spins out into the fifth act a realisation already made obvious in the second.

When he arrives onstage, he refuses to reveal what he knows:. The opening exchanges between Oedipus and Teiresias create an absurdist atmosphere in which one of the characters has come at the bidding of the other but then refuses to answer his questions.

In the course of the scene, Tiresias repeats his refusal several times —, —, — ; he then, in fact, reveals what he knows —, , —, — When he finally walks away, he says:. I will go when I have said what I came here for, not fearing your face; for there is no way that you can destroy me. Does he mean that he came with the purpose of telling what he refused to tell? Or does he simply mean that he said what he was asked to come for?

Interpreters offer different explanations for the perceived incoherence; these can be divided into four different general categories:. In fact, Tiresias must break strong linguistic taboos if he is to reveal the truth see the analyses in sections 5 and 6.

He first resists disclosing what he knows and only under strong verbal aggression from Oedipus does he reveal the truth. At the end of the scene, he attributes the intention of revealing the truth to himself, either as a post-factum explanation or as a revelation of a strategy he had in mind from the beginning.

The four approaches listed above a-d will be analysed in inverted order. Section 3 will use possible-world theory to discuss whether the incoherence is logically inevitable or not interpretation d.

Section 4 will use ToM to discuss whether Tiresias is manipulating Oedipus interpretation c. Sections 5 and 6 will use politeness theory and ToM to discuss the linguistic hurdles faced by Tiresias and to offer a linguistic analysis of the scene interpretations a, b, and, especially, e.

Are incoherencies inevitable within the storyworld of the play? Dorati argues that that is the case. He notes that, in a partially determined storyworld,. However, Dorati argues that, at the beginning of the play, the audience does not know whether the storyworld is determined or not. Tiresias poses again and amplifies at the human level the problem posed by Apollo at the divine level. I do not know; on matters where I do not understand, I like to be silent.

If Tiresias is omniscient […] and decided not to speak for some reason, why did he come onstage only to refuse to speak, and, at least according to his original intentions, to go back right away without revealing what he knows? The problem is that the storyworld of the play combines a modicum of freedom with a large number of events determined by fate. Prophetic abilities also pose a difficulty. Why does Tiresias not act to prevent parricide and incest? Why did he not solve the riddle of the Sphinx —; see also —?

Oedipus infers from this that Tiresias is not a true prophet — , but the audience knows that Tiresias does indeed possess prophetic knowledge, as Oedipus will later realise According to Dorati, these questions point to an impossibility in the storyworld of Oedipus the King : it is impossible to avoid fate, but Sophocles minimised the intervention of the gods within the play.

One could explain the events of the play on the hypothesis that the gods intervene at the right moment in the story; for instance, we can infer that Apollo does not let Tiresias know what would stop the course of action envisaged by Apollo himself. Dorati rules this out, 41 but there is internal 42 and external evidence to the contrary. Moreover, the audience does not need to suppose that Tiresias is omniscient. Indeed, since it is not fated that you should fall by my hand, since Apollo is sufficient, who takes an interest in bringing that to its conclusion.

The prophet only knows what Apollo reveals to him when Apollo sees fit. Another approach to the problem, a very extreme one, was suggested by Ahl. Murnaghan, in response to Ahl, points out that this kind of reading presupposes treating characters in literature as if they were part of real life.

This means that extreme interpretations use ToM in a way that seems illegitimate. However, we cannot completely abandon ToM when we interpret texts.

Characters that act without motives and in a way that is unintelligible are not characteristic of Greek tragedy but of very different modern genres. In fact, ToM is crucial to the play. It is used by Oedipus in the first part of the play, when he, on the basis of his false belief in his own innocence, infers that Tiresias and Creon must have some other reasons for accusing him. Oedipus concludes that they are plotting against him in order to rob him of his kingdom — If we approach the scene from the politeness point of view of Tiresias and Oedipus, we find that they both have very difficult linguistic tasks.

The dynamics of power between the two interlocutors are unbalanced. Oedipus has supreme political power but Tiresias has a special connection with the gods. There is no established hierarchy between these two powerful people. Tiresias himself points out the ambiguity in ranking:.

Even if you are a monarch, the right of equal reply must be equalised, at least; for of that I too am master. For my life is enslaved not at all to you, but to Loxias; so I will not be inscribed as having Creon as my patron.

Tiresias does not claim to be superior to Oedipus but equal. Clashes between prophet and king are common in Greek epic and tragedy as well as in other genres and literatures. This implies the need for facework from the prophet. Moreover, Oedipus has access to special intellectual abilities which make him think he is, in some respects, more authoritative than the prophet; these abilities push him to extremes in attributing intentions to other agents, using ToM to an unprecedented level.

Finally, Tiresias and Oedipus are speaking in front of a chorus of Theban citizens, and Tiresias must avoid using taboo words or expressions. Oedipus, at the beginning of the scene, asks Tiresias to tell the truth.

Tiresias faces three politeness problems. First of all, if he accepts to do what Oedipus asks him to do, he must threaten the negative face of Oedipus. Tiresias has to tell Oedipus that he must leave town as a consequence of his own edict. Secondly, Tiresias must also make admissions that threaten his own negative face: he is asked by Oedipus to admit his inability to help now and in the past.

He must tell Oedipus that. These are all extreme aggressions to the positive face of Oedipus. It was, from a legal point of view, a taboo word. The person making a false accusation of parricide could be brought to trial. In the dialogue with Oedipus, Tiresias avoids or delays revealing explicitly what Oedipus did. His euphemistic statements are therefore not a politeness strategy directed to Oedipus. Oedipus starts the dialogue by failing to understand the gravity of the linguistic problems of his interlocutor; he nonetheless appreciates that his request is a threat to the negative face of Tiresias.

For this reason, Oedipus tries to mitigate the face threat with standard positive politeness techniques. He welcomes the seer expressing exaggerated praise:. Oedipus sizes up a situation, makes a judgment, and acts—all in an instant. While this confident expedience was laudable in the first section, it is exaggerated to a point of near absurdity in the second.

Oedipus asks Tiresias and Creon a great many questions—questions are his typical mode of address and frequently a sign of his quick and intelligent mind—but they are merely rhetorical, for they accuse and presume rather than seek answers. The Chorus seems terrified and helpless in this section, and its speech at lines — is fraught with uncertainty and anxiety.

Though, like Oedipus, the Chorus cannot believe the truth of what Tiresias has said, the Chorus does not believe itself to be untouchable as Oedipus does, consisting as it does of the plague-stricken, innocent citizens of Thebes. The gods are still present in this speech, but they are no longer of any help, because they know truths that they will not reveal.

Thebes is menaced rather than protected by the heavens. SparkTeach Teacher's Handbook. Themes Motifs Symbols. Oedipus was a ruler, a king, he was a driven and motivated man who put his all into all that he did, but is a social status enough to cover a crime? Within an act unknowingly of incest, Oedipus took the throne as king due to the marriage to his mother. Although the gruesome event, Oedipus had no idea he was in a relationship with one, whom, well, was related.

Oedipus had. The Story of Oedipus is a tragic narrative of the life of a king whose life gets turned upside down when a hidden truth guarded by a prophecy comes out. I believe that it is not Oedipus Rex who is at fault in the story. I feel that destiny had pushed them to the ends that they all met. Throughout the play there were instances where I could see that fault could have fallen on the shoulders of Oedipus but to many times the incidences occurred that skewed my vision of what seemed to be accidental turned.

Arthur was very good at pretending, schooled to hide his feelings at a very young age. Did what his years of training and upbringing demanded he do instead of what his heart was telling him. A king could not show indecision or weakness or fear, else he'd lose the respect of his equals and subjects. But sometimes he did it at the most inappropriate times. Why had he treated Gwen as if she hadn't matter?

Like her words had no impact on him? That her presence was calming energy that enveloped him in. There are various extraordinary stories that people have read in their lifetimes that they will never forget. After reading several poems and stories this semester, there were three outstanding stories that caught my attention.