There's a lot of talk about feet in this play. How are the motifs of the swollen foot and the limp related to the answers of the riddles? Can you find some ways in which they are related to the symbols of blindness / sight or ignorance / knowledge?
Friday, November 30, 2012
Feet: Extra Credit
For five points of extra credit (in participation), please read this quote and respond, or or add on/disagree/build on someone else's response. You will only get credit if you submit a response by Monday at 9 PM. Original ideas only, please!
There's a lot of talk about feet in this play. How are the motifs of the swollen foot and the limp related to the answers of the riddles? Can you find some ways in which they are related to the symbols of blindness / sight or ignorance / knowledge?
There's a lot of talk about feet in this play. How are the motifs of the swollen foot and the limp related to the answers of the riddles? Can you find some ways in which they are related to the symbols of blindness / sight or ignorance / knowledge?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Ms Scher, the quote is invisible. All I can see are solid while line.
ReplyDeleteSorry, but I won't be able to fix it til Sunday. Please copy and paste it into a word doc and you should be able to see it.
ReplyDeleteA baby walks on two legs and is the most innocent and unwise of all. A man walks on two, and has both the knowledge and power to be great. When people get really old, a third leg, or a cane, is required. Old people tend to lose their memories and strength. Oedipus as a baby had his ankle pierced, which may symbolize that even though Oedipus is a man now, like a baby, Oedipus cannot grasp the full extent of his life yet. Oedipus can walk on two legs, but like seeing the truth, he has trouble dealing with it. Oedipus is still too ignorant, and cannot fully stand up to fight with the truth. When Oedipus finally mans up to learn the truth, it is the scars on his legs that may ultimately prove that he is the son of Iokaste and Laios.
ReplyDeleteShahrier, I liked your ideas very much. I feel as if Oedipus has the ideas of a child, if not a baby. Like you said, "Oedipis cannot grasp the full extent of his life yet"(Shahrier, not only can he not grasp his life, he has the ideals of a baby, he'll do whatever it takes to get what he wants. He also refuses to believe what he does not want to. He has the same qualities of a stubborn child. But, luckily, his final emergence as a man proves to be one of nobility and heroism.
DeleteAs humans, we often rely on our feet to carry and guide us through life because that's how we get to where we need and want to go. Babies begin by crawling because they are just starting their lives and they need more support. As we get older, we're expected to stand on our own two feet and to be independent about what we do with our lives. Oedipus, who has pierced feet, is misguided about his true past and even his present. His wounded feet symbolize his inability to comprehend and confront the truth. Despite the fact that he should be able to see, to stand on his own feet, he's incapable of doing so because he's willingly blinded himself and unable to fit the pieces of his life together. Furthermore, his scarred feet will always be with him, just like how his mental and later physical blindness carry on into his old age.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the points you’ve made, Jeanette! Oedipus’ swollen feet can further serve to symbolize his troublesome journey through life. Oedipus’ scars are a reminder of his everlasting search for the truth, and his inability to obtain it. Because the condition of his feet will only get worse as time progresses, his continuous searching for knowledge will only slow him down; he will still remain ignorant. Oedipus spends so much time searching for answers when in reality, he has been unwilling to accept it. His wounded feet cannot allow him to move past his blindness, because he “walks” through the wrong paths of life, without proper guidance. Although one’s feet enables them to maneuver from place to place, it does not help to see the truth, so one can spend a lifetime searching for answers that really lies within themselves.
DeleteI really like your ideas, Anjanette! I especially agree with your statement about how Oedipus’ swollen feet “symbolize his troublesome journey through life.” I similarly think that his feet reveal how he has to suffer more, or use more effort than others, to learn the same amount of knowledge. This relates to the riddle, which describes the growth that everyone goes through as they get older. However, Oedipus’ ignorance hinders his growth in his knowledge of himself. It also doesn’t help that all of his parents, biological and adopted, avoid or never tell him the prophecy that makes up who he is. His swollen feet symbolize how he is impaired through all of the ignorance around and especially within himself, which causes him to suffer and be metaphorically blind. He does not learn and gain knowledge as he goes through life, unlike others who can go from place to place and realize new things. Therefore, Oedipus’ swollen feet reveal his inability to grow as a person and figure out his identity, things that only occur as people progress through life.
DeleteHey Jeanette, I too would like to agree with your awesome ideas because I had the same idea as you did on how important feet are to our lives. Because we need our feet to be able to go about our daily lives, his wounded feet mean that he will never be able to live out a "proper" normal way of life. This is because the scar is how Oedipus is marked by the Gods; he can never truly live a normal life. Also, his wounded feet may also symbolize how he will never be able to truly escape the gods, because he will always be too slow to outrun them. This could be symbolic in the sense that the gods knew that he would try and escape his fate, and so they injured his feet to try and tell him this message. The injured feet are symbolic because they represent Oedipus's ignorance to the fact that the gods are all powerful, and he is not.
DeleteI agree with Chris that the wounds on Oedipus's feet symbolize that he will never be able to escape the fate the gods have laid down for him. In fact, the gods have damned him from some reason, in short, spurring him on a quest that'll last him and his name through two other adventures. In addition, he has been marked for suffering from the moment of his birth. As Chris mentioned before, this further explains Sophocles's idea that humans have no power in face of the gods. Also, the fact that his real parents abandoned him and his foster parents lied about his heritage puts the icing on the misery cake if one wants to ponder on how much Oedipus has no knowledge of. However though revealing incidents occur (multiple retelling of the prophecies) not once does he ponder how his feet became the way they are. The scars also highlight the irony of Oedipus's ignorance. Although his name blatantly draws attention to his scarred feet (which are the keys to him having knowledge of his identity), Oedipus doesn't realize his true identity until it’s too late.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI agree with both Catherine and Nekeisha’s comments on Oedipus’ own identity! Even though the riddle Oedipus solves involves feet, he never once contemplated at looking at his own until his demise despite the fact he had already known his prophecy. This evokes the idea of a riddle that does not deal with the Sphinx but with Oedipus’ own identity. The Sphinx’s riddle only foreshadowed the grander and much more elaborate puzzle of Oedipus and everything he represents. Even though born with the name that connects to feet, Oedipus never bothers trying to solve his own riddle (of which he had no knowledge of) because he was much too carried away with protecting his own city as well as trying to detest the prophecy the gods had already encumbered him with. Both of these factors will diminish after the downfall of Oedipus because he will no longer have to care about a city he is exiled from nor a prophecy that already came true. Once this occurs, only then does Oedipus solve the underlying yet greater riddle of his story.
DeleteOedipus’s damaged feet are a testament to his past, where he received his scars. These scars suggest how Oedipus just starting to figure out his life and that the scars are a misguidance as he moves on in life. When people receive a scar, they need to adjust to a new or different lifestyle, which can be the case for Oedipus as he is still trying to get on track with his life. Oedipus’s feet can also show his ignorance because he has difficulty in accepting the truth, much like how he has difficulty in carrying his feet through life. Oedipus’s missteps in life are due to his ignorance because of his unwillingness to follow the right path and instead, going in his path that is clouded by his hubris. Oedipus has damaged feet to show his difficulty in accepting the truth and his efforts to remain on the right path of life.
ReplyDeleteHi Byron! Your ideas are similar to mine because I also agree about how the scars on Oedipus’ feet reflect his overall ignorance, which haunts him after he knows about the prophecy. As the riddle portrays, a person’s feet is the foundation to one’s ability to movement and will always be part of their lives forever, young and old. Since Oedipus’ scars are located on his feet, it symbolizes his sins that will remain forever just as how scars stay on one’s life forever. Oedipus willfully blinds himself to the truth about the prophecy by displaying his ignorance and his hubris. In contrast, he was also never curious about the scars on his feet or about his origins. After Oedipus figures out the prophecy and blinds himself, he now has to live with the scars he was born to live with even though he is unable to look at it, which resembles how his sins will always be a part of his life that he will soon have to accept one day.
DeleteI agree with both Byron and Janice on their views on the significance of feet in "Oedipus Rex"! Oedipus has scars on his feet from having them bound together and being left to die of natural causes by his parents, Laius and Jocasta. These scars are left on his feet for the rest of his life and signify his fate. Despite having proof of the scars on his feet, Oedipus chooses to not see how Jocasta's story lines up with his traumatic childhood. Now, Oedipus can see clearly, physically, but cannot see what's right in front of him, or well, what's right below him, which is proof that he is Jocasta's son. But when Oedipus is finally rid of the fog of denial that blinds him from what really happened, he sees his scars that ring with the truth, and what does he do? He blinds himself, not able to face it, thinking that physically not seeing can keep him from having to deal with the truth. But he should know that that does not work, given that Teresias is a blind man who sees all. Oedipus' ignorance is shown through his scars and his incapability to comprehend the living proof that is his wounded feet. Also, Oedipus can see his goals. He is noble and ambitious, but does not see that he is a bit too ambitious. His feet are wounded, and since they are a means of transportation, he feels like he can do it. He "sees" it and convinces himself that he can do it, but may not really be able to do it given his wounded feet.
DeleteThe riddle is about the natural stages of a person’s life and growth, from birth to old age. Normally, people are born unable to walk, so they must crawl to move. As they grow, their feet get stronger and they are able to walk on two legs until they eventually grow old and require a walking stick. However, Oedipus’ feet are pierced soon after his birth so that he is impaired for his whole life. Therefore, Oedipus’ wounded feet represent a life that would be different from that of a normal person because of his parents’ action after they learned of the prophecy. Similarly, Oedipus is blinded from the truth his whole life, believing that Polybos and Merope are his parents, never realizing that he was the one who killed Laius, and not knowing that Jocasta is actually his real mother. Thus, not only is Oedipus impaired because of his injured foot, but also impaired in seeing the truth.
ReplyDeleteHi Alan! I totally agree with you. Especially when you said that since Oedipus' feet were damaged when he was an infant, he'll live a different life than others, and that's how his wounded feet play its role, by showing he's a symbol in the play. Also, I think that Oedipus' feet proves his ignorance, for he never questioned why they were wounded in the first place. Oedipus never questioned himself or his existence. Just like how Oedipus finds complication in accepting the truth, he also finds complication in walking with wounded feet in his life, showing the hardship he faces. Unlike a normal adult in the riddle, Oedipus cannot walk "normally" like others with his two feet for it is damaged, showing he won't be like Kreon or the other characters in the play who thinks with reason. His scarred feet will stay with him forever until he dies, which can foreshadow his downfall, since it's possible that his ignorance/refusal to accept will never leave him either.
DeleteWhen a child has not yet learned how to walk, the child crawls; a child also cannot truly understand everything around it, thus the child is ignorant of the real world. On the other hand, adults are full grown, knowledgeable and able to stand on their own two feet in order to support themselves. Finally, elders are at a point where they are very wise and know a lot about life, but once again need support because their body at this point becomes fragile (cane). Oedipus’ disability relates to the emotional instability in his life. His inability to realize the truth, keeps him ignorant, and blind even though he can physically see. The riddle alludes to the fact that Oedipus is not a child but has a child’s ignorance, he is a man but he does not have the necessary stability and knowledge (willful blindness) a man needs to be successful in life. Finally he is not an elder but needs the support an elder needs due to his limp, and later true perpetual blindness.
DeleteThe riddle of the Sphinx asks "What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the middle of the day, and three at night?", but nowhere in the riddle does it mention a person with disabled feet. Oedipus' name means "swollen foot" which symbolizes that instead of standing on two feet, he stands on only one foot. The riddle applies to walking and due to the fact that Oedipus only has one able foot, he cannot move forward, thus left in a state of paralysis. He was the only person able to solve the riddle because he was most likely the only person who did not apply to the riddle. "Morning","day", and "night" Oedipus is walking on one foot but the people of Thebes, and especially Jokasta, are unaware of the one hint linking Oedipus to being the child of prophecy. The Sphinx was a sign sent by the gods to expose Oedipus as Laius' murderer, but the people of Thebes were too ignorant and too busy praising Oedipus as a hero that they did not even remember that Laius was murdered. They only remembered Laius' murder when a plague swept through their kingdom, yet they continued to be blind to the truth that the one footed man that was ruling over them was actually the criminal they spent years searching for.
ReplyDeleteFeet are significant to the riddle because they are what enable us to “walk,” whether on four, three, or two. Just as feet are our main means of transport, sight is our main way of interpreting the world around us. Oedipus, even though he has his sight (for now), cannot move normally. Thus, he can see the world around him, but he can’t navigate through it easily: he stumbles and limps. Similar to his clear sight, Oedipus has most of the facts before him: he has heard Jocasta’s prophecy which is strikingly similar to his own, he has heard about the crossroads, he knows Jocasta’s child had his feet pierced, and he has heard people say he’s not Polybos’ son (not to mention Teresias’ answer to his question). However, he hasn’t put them all together, similar to the way in which he limps about the physical world. Another reason the wound is significant is because he ran away from his prophecy by running away from Polybos and Merope, but since he can’t run very quickly due his injury, the prophecy has metaphorically caught up to him.
ReplyDeleteHey Alex, nice analysis! You make an interesting connection between Oedipus' limping and his blindness to the truth that actually surrounds him, and the prophecy metaphorically catching up to him. Because Oedipus' main means of traveling around is hindered by his biological parent's acts of escaping a prophecy, Oedipus' swollen feet emphasizes the consequence of ignorance and underestimation of the prophecy. Despite this hindrance, Oedipus determines to move on, however, similar to his defiant parents, only in complete ignorance as he stumbles through the determined road of life. Because Oedipus disregards any questioning of his background and his swollen feet as he submerses himself in ignorance, Oedipus' swollen feet, which forever remains with him, eventually hinders his attempts of living in total ignorance of his background and thus, connects him back to the doomed prophecy.
Delete