Being humans we feel, reciprocate and practice different emotions. Sometimes a feeling mostly a negative one, can be so overwhelming that you feel a heavyweight on your chest and let it out in form of crying, aggression, or physical release through art and motion. Catharsis is said to be this process, where you purify yourself from the guilt suppressing you by releasing emotions. The concept of Catharsis was firstly introduced by Aristotle. The etymology of the word Catharsis leads back to the Greek word “kathairein” which means “to cleanse”. In Greek tragedy, this discharge of emotions or purification through catharsis can be seen.
This article is copy protected!
|
According to Aristotle, a tragedy is meant to evoke feelings of pity and terror. A tragic hero suffers a terrible fate making the audience or readers pity him and terrify them by observing his horrible situation. The famous Greek drama “Oedipus Rex” written by Sophocles is a perfect example of a tragedy. It meets the criteria of a tragedy, for instance, noble birth, and a tragic flaw leads to the fall leading to a moment of remorse and catharsis. Catharsis is experienced by the character as well as the audience. The flaw in the protagonist leads to action connecting it to the plot making it interesting. He claimed that such tragedies intensify our feelings. This evoking catharsis brings relief to the audience by releasing their feelings.
The prologue constructs an image of Oedipus as a prideful and principled king. His people are frightened as the city of Thebes is suffering from a dreadful plague. Even in the beginning of this drama, the moment of catharsis is demonstrated. The people pleaded to him, cried for help to cleanse the city from this curse, and the emotion of pity is experienced. Creon informs Oedipus that the murderer of King Laius is the reason behind the plague. So Oedipus being the magnificent king, starts looking for the murderer as he was overconfident and intrigue to find him. But little did he know that he was the killer. The dark history of his existence and the past of prophecy is being revealed to him.
When Teiresias gave him clues and Oedipus went ballistic on him for disrespecting him, exposes both feelings of fear and pity. “To the children with whom...no skill in prophecy” Teiresias revealed the truth but Oedipus completely ignored it and instead of solving this riddle he accused Teiresias of the murder. This also shows the impulsive side of his nature. Even though Teiresias was blind still he had the correct knowledge while Oedipus was blind to see the truth. “And a still bloody hand… shall hunt him down”
Teiresias's words left him puzzled and he was not ready to take the responsibility. Then he blamed Creon that he might be plotting against him to overthrow him. Creon tells him that you are your worst enemy as you created a problem for yourself on your own. “Judgments too quickly formed are dangerous”. He was ignorant of the truth and was too blind to figure it out. Jocasta made sense of the prophecy’s accuracy but he was still ambiguous, trying to overlook it.
Finally in the end when the truth was revealed to him and Jocasta killed herself, everything left him in despair. Not only the spectators but he felt sorry for himself and how wretched his fate was written. Maybe if he had thought out his actions beforehand, he could have avoided his fate.
The moment when an unbearable truth is unfolded to you and you are dumbfounded and unaware of the next step. At that point, all you want to do is somehow ease the restlessness that took birth in you and digest the reality. That was felt by Oedipus and Jocasta. They were overwhelmed with feelings of shock, fear, disgust, and agony. They were unable to comprehend the scenarios of fate that led to such an incident. Both of them were overpowered by their emotions and it was difficult to endure the burden of guilt. Although they knew what was written could not be changed but still they tried to. Jocasta understood everything eventually that her husband is her son who killed her former husband and the prophecy did come true. All of this was too much for her to accept and she was overtaken by her despair and she committed suicide. “She killed herself…both hands clenched in her hair.”
On the other hand, Oedipus chooses to punish himself by blinding and exiling himself from Thebes. He relieved his sight with darkness from seeing all the dreadful things he did and stopped them from seeing any further damage. Also, he accepted his sins in front of everyone and wanted them to cast him out of Thebes being the reason behind the plague. He thought maybe this would ease the discomfort he is going through and the melancholy of losing everything in a blink of an eye. As for most of his life, he lived with pride.
Now if we talk about the audience viewing this drama. There were different emotions released throughout the drama. Although the audience knew the story all along they suddenly feel sorry for him. At some point, they felt fear for Oedipus's character and with a climax, the audience felt bad. They considered that fate was being unfair to him and eventually everyone can relate to it. Although the story lack universality but the personality traits, behaviors, flaws, and characters are relevant to the audience. Fiction is supposed to be unreal but it always connects with reality.
To conclude, we can say that sometimes humans let out their pain by crying about other’s sufferings. Besides being empathetic, they become so impassive and dry about their wounds and misery that when they see someone else’s suffering, they find themselves crying for them and normally discharging their piled-up sentiments. In our life, sometimes things happen opposite to what we expected. We think we did not deserve to be treated like this as mostly life is considered to be a circle of karma. But we have to accept things the way they are to make survival easy and move on.
“Time, which watches everything and uncovered you against your will”
The play is interpreted by Hafsah Afridi, one of the team members at the School of Literature.
