Essay on "Oedipus Rex and the Burial at Thebes"

Essay 3 pages (1004 words) Sources: 0 Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Oedipus Rex and Burial at Thebes

The dramatic tragedies of Ancient Greece represent some of the most important and profound stories of Western Civilization. They have been retold many times over the millennia since the myths were first told, sometimes in very direct adaptations that retain much of the original story and intent of the earliest version, and often in new contexts and in almost unrecognizable forms. Seamus Heaney did not go this far in Burial at Thebes, his adaptation of Sophocles' Antigone, but his own interpretation of the classic (literally) story of Oedipus and the fallout of his tragic reign is still an intriguing and obviously modern telling of the story. Without changing any of the elements of the plot of this well-known and often adapted story, Heaney manages to shift the focus and the themes of the play just slightly in order to enhance the plays relevance -- already apparent in the original form -- in these modern times. At times he takes certain liberties with the translation and adaptation, proving that art is never dead but rather that it must breathe, grow, and adapt along with the times that produce and view it.

The changes Heaney has made are often subtle, and sometimes not, but either way they have a profound effect on the interpretation of the story and the characters' intents. Not only does Heaney's retelling of Antigone reflect changes in modern dramatic and personal sensibilities since the time of the Ancient Greeks, but it also reflects the shift in character that occurred between Oedipus Rex, the first play in the tragic cycle by Sophocles, and his Antigone. A comparison of Seamus Heaney's Burial at Thebes with Sophocles' Oedipus Rex reveals the variety of ways in which any story and any character in that story can be viewed, depending on which side of history the viewer stands, and the size of the gap that exists between the viewer and the action of the story. These plays reveal that this gap, however, is less important than we may think.

Both Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and Heaney's Burial at Thebes revolve around themes of betrayal of family members. The differences in the situations, however, as well as the differences in the telling of the two plays, reveal strikingly different related themes branching off of this one over-riding theme. In Oedipus Rex, it is the king's unknowing betrayal of his father -- and his mother's subsequent betrayal of her first husband -- that leads to all of the following tragic events. In this play, the focus seems to be on the inevitability of fate. It is not the actions of the human characters in and of themselves that leads to tragedy, but instead it is fate and oracular intervention that forces events forward. In Burial at Thebes, the emphasis is placed on personal responsibility and the injustices of human actions; fate and the gods, while still playing an important part in the plot of the play, are less emphasized than the petty… READ MORE

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