In the play Oedipus the Ruler, Queen Jocasta illustrates the disastrous effects of perpetuating ones sin rather than confronting it. Motivated to cover her own shame, Jocasta places into movement and perpetuates some incidents that she designed to prevent, but finally allows at Oedipus price. Through the entire play she makes an attempt to hide the reality by deceit and feigned disbelief.
Long before the play ever starts Jocasta packages into action the incidents that lead up to the tragic stopping of Oedipus the King. She was so ashamed to be the mom of a kid with such a dismal future that she possessed him cast out onto a pile. By this step and her lack of action as a parent she chosen Oedipus destiny. This is the first exemplory case of Jocastas s pity and deceit.
my son he wasn t three times old and the young man s father fastened his ankles, got a henchman fling him away on a barren, trackless pile.
Jocasta most definitely cast-out her kid due to shame he induced her. Later in lines 1289-1291 we start to see the herdsman testify that Jocasta was the main one who gave him the child with the demand to kill it. Now she actually is ashamed of what she performed and free herself from that guilt she consciously sits to herself and those around her in what happened.
When Oedipus involves Thebes prior to the beginning of the play, Jocasta s pity is compounded. Jocasta recognized the prophecy that foretold the death of her hubby by her child s hand, and her possible incestuous matrimony. She thought the prophecy and got her boy cast-out because than it. After her man had died, a young stranger from a foreign land was to take her for his better half. Jocasta quickly identified this stranger, Oedipus, as her kid from long ago. Her knowledge of the prophecy, Oedipus ankles, the mailing away of the one see to the murder of her hubby, and her calmness after experiencing Tiresias accusations indicate that she realized Oedipus true identification before their nuptial. Why have Jocasta marry Oedipus knowing he was her boy? If Jocasta did not marry Oedipus she would have to provide some reason. Experienced she cited the prophecy and said that he was her son she'd heap shame on her behalf head. She would have to publicly pity her kid and herself by acknowledging that her kid killed his daddy, her husband attempted to destroy her kid and the prophecy had been satisfied even after she attempted to avoid it. Marrying and coupling with her son, with no person ever knowing the reality, was the only way Jocasta could get away from general public and private humiliation.
Jocasta knowingly chose to fulfill the prophecy, while Oedipus was unaware, in order to hide her pity and guilt. She made herself believe if the prophecy was fulfilled and no person was the wiser she and her child could live the others with their lives as a happy couple free of general public shame or guilt. However, Jocasta cannot free herself from the shame she recognized she bore. She lived a life of lays and publicly dismissed the prophecy, which she knew to be true, to be able to convince herself and those around her that all was well. Jocasta used the word thieves while some use the term travelers to describe the killer(s) of Ruler Laius. She frequently tried to influence Oedipus that there is no reliability in what the oracles prophesied.
A prophet? Well then, free yourself of every charge! Pay attention to me and learn some piece of mind: no skill in the world, nothing can penetrate the future. Here's proof, quick and the point.
(778-783)
She goes on to describe the birth and casting-out of her child and of the death of Laius, so that they can verify the prophets haven't any reliability (knowing all along they are correct in every fine detail). Despite her effort to influence Oedipus of the unimportance of the prophecy Oedipus cannot be persuaded. Jocasta begins to be desperate. Her planet, an environment of lies, would crumble if the reality were found out.
Jocasta s activities might appear to be the soothing role of an wife in this situation, but her motives are definitely more self-centered. She is aware of the prophecy has been satisfied and if Oedipus discovers it her pity and guilt will be laid bare for all to see. This truth becomes more clear when the messenger from Corinth arrives. Oedipus starts to observe how a horrible trap is squeezing around his neck of the guitar. Jocasta recognizes she established the trap long ago, a capture for Oedipus as well as herself. She knows Oedipus is near to springing this snare and begs him to avoid probing the issue.
Stop in the name of god, if you love dearly your own life, call off this search! My suffering will do.
(1161-1163)
Jocasta has experienced privately for years and years, but nothing is more terrifying to her than the general public discovering her shame.
Oedipus, bent on finding the truth about his delivery, dashes most of Jocasta s hopes of abandoning the search.
Hurry, fetch me the herdsman, now! Leave her to glory in her royal labor and birth.
(1174-1175)
Jocasta s shame of course is his royal labor and birth. The simple truth is close at hand. All of her lays and pity are about to be revealed and she is powerless to stop it. All she can do now could be curse him with the name she offered him at birth when she tried to have him killed:
man of agony that is the only name I've for you, that no other ever, ever, ever!
(1176-1178)
At this moment she can t keep any longer. The agony of her own sins, her own pity is bearing down with all its weight on her behalf heart.
There is not a get away for Jocasta from the capture she has arranged by her own actions and deceit. The only real break free from her shame is suicide. Still true to form, within the last minutes of her life she is unable to recognize that she brought this all down on her behalf own brain. She blamed Laius. She wept for what experienced took place to her. Never once have she point out regret or ask forgiveness for what she have to the lives of those close to her. In the long run consumed by her own personal pity and pity for what have been done to her she hung herself on the foundation where she laid willingly with the son she was so shamed by.
By her own activities Jocasta is a sufferer in Oedipus the King; but more, she is a catalyst for the victimization of others. Influenced by her own prideful characteristics, her activities wove a net where she and Oedipus were caught. The character Jocasta illustrates how one individual s crimes make a difference those they love the most. Jocasta needed Oedipus to be happy, but was struggling to make it so because of her own shame. This is the universal fact of Oedipus the Ruler: When we, like Jocasta, burden ourselves with private guilt or pity we cannot openly and wholly is in love with those around us. Unfortunately, we may actually cause great pain in their lives, equally as Jocasta performed.
