Oedipus is born under a curse that dooms him to unknowingly kill his father (not realizing that the man he slays is his father) and marry his mother, Jocasta, and he does so without realizing what he is doing. Only after the fact, when Thebes, the city where he reigns as king, is under a curse, does Oedipus come to realize that he has not been able to escape the fate decreed to his parents when he was born.
Orestes is the son of Clytemnestra (his mother) and Agamemnon (his father). When Agamemnon returns from the Trojan War, Aegisthus, Clytemnestra's lover, kills him. Orestes gets revenge by killing Aegisthus and Clytemnestra.
The tales are similar in that both families are doomed, and both tales of violence involve killing a parent. However, the tales are different in that Oedipus kills his father unwittingly, while Orestes does so knowingly. Oedipus is regarded as a tragic figure who can not escape his fate, while Orestes is celebrated in the Odyssey. The violence that Oedipus commits is not sanctioned, while the violence that Orestes commits is sanctioned. Orestes has avenged the death of his father and righted the wrongs done to his father, and he is held up to Telemachus, whose mother, Penelope, is besieged by suitors in her husband's absence, as a model of a way to act. According to Greek morals, Telemachus would be justified in slaying the suitors in the same way that Orestes killed his mother and his mother's lover.
Monday, January 21, 2019
In the Odyssey, both the myth of Oedipus and his mother Jocasta and the myth of Clytemenstra and Orestes are mentioned. How do these two myths differ between their perspectives on violence?
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