Comparison Of Myth And Investigation In Oedipus The King

There is a lot that can be observed and argued from the events that occur in each of the stories in the Oedipus trilogy. “Myth and Investigation in Oedipus Rex” by Peter T. Koper, “Oedipus and Abraham” by Moshe Shamir, and “Oedipus crux; reasonable doubt in Oedipus the King” by Kurt Fosso are three particular articles that have an appealing academic approach to the Oedipus trilogy. In Koper’s article, he mainly expresses how there is uncertainty in the crime committed by Oedipus; murdering his father, King Laius. In Shamir’s article, he makes an interesting comparison between Oedipus and Father Abraham. Similar to Koper’s article, in Fosso’s article, he tries to argue how there is “reasonable doubt” evident in several parts of the “Oedipus
Rex” story. Since Koper’s article takes a unique yet simple approach, but still manages to provide enough evidence for the main argument, it remains to be the most interesting of the three articles that were read. In “Myth and Investigation in Oedipus Rex” Koper tries to convince us why we should not immediately believe that Oedipus murdered his father, King Laius.
Koper expresses how there is no concrete evidence that suggests that Oedipus did in fact clearly murder his father. He explains how in the story the servant tells Oedipus that King Laius was murdered by robbers at a place “where three roads meet”, however the servant fails to mention the amount of robbers at the scene. According to the author of the article, that is seen as crucial and substantial information to determine Oedipus’ innocence. In addition, Oedipus fails to obtain additional information on the murder of King Laius, as it appears he is more focused on determining his own identity instead. That is another reason, according to Koper, why Oedipus should not be blindly accused of the crime. He also argues that the people of the town immediately accept Oedipus’ guilt out of desperation, to stop the plague. With these significant points to consider, Koper believes that there is uncertainty that Oedipus truly murdered King
Laius. In “Oedipus crux: reasonable doubt in Oedipus the King” Fosso tries to argue that there are moments of doubt in several parts of the story’s plot. For one, it cannot be certain that Oedipus did in fact murder King Laius. Fosso argues that it may have been another elderly man that Oedipus admits to killing and there is no clear evidence to convict him of that murder. He also explains how Oedipus may not even be the offspring of Jocasta, therefore eliminating the topic of incest from the story. The author also goes on to clarify how Teiresias may have accused Oedipus of incest due to his inside intelligence and minimal knowledge of the situation. From these particular points, Fosso understands that there is room for “reasonable doubt” in “Oedipus Rex”.
In “Oedipus and Abraham” Shamir makes an interesting comparison between Oedipus’ crime and Father Abraham’s crime. He expresses how although both the murders were in ways different from each other, since Oedipus murdered his father and Abraham potentially murdered his son, in a sense, vaguely similar. According to the author, both of the attempted murders represent “individual against society”, “chaos against order”, and “darkness against light”. In addition, both of them symbolize “instinct over reason”. It is clear that both of their attempted murders were clearly instinctual and no planning went into them. For these reasons, Shamir believes that it is appropriate to compare the actions of Oedipus to that of Abraham.
Although “Oedipus crux: reasonable doubt in Oedipus the King” by Kurt Fosso and “Oedipus and Abraham” by Moshe Shamir were appealing articles at first, after thoroughly reading them both, it was clear that they were no way near as interesting as “Myth and Investigation in Oedipus Rex” by Peter T.
Koper. Fosso’s article is somewhat similar to Koper’s, however what diminishes Fosso’s article is the lack of supporting details. He makes the interesting case that there is reason for doubt in certain events that occur in the “Oedipus Rex” story, but fails to specify why we should not believe the events that transpire in the story. He claims that we should not believe Oedipus murdered King Laius because it may have been another elderly man that Oedipus murdered, but we do not have enough evidence to believe otherwise. Shamir’s article “Oedipus and Abraham” has an interesting academic approach since it draws a comparison between the actions of Oedipus and Father Abraham, whom is the first of the three biblical patriarchs. The downfall of the article is clear from the vague similarities from both their murders. This is what distinguishes these two articles from being as interesting as Koper’s
article.
Peter T. Koper’s article, “Myth and Investigation in Oedipus Rex”, is the most interesting article for several reasons. Unlike Fosso’s article, this article actually provides specific supporting points for why the reader should not trust all the events that occur in “Oedipus Rex”. It also takes a unique approach, in the sense that it looks at the “Oedipus Rex” story from a “mystery” perspective. The author of the article is essentially trying to fill in missing holes in the plot and consequently determine why Oedipus should not be incoherently accused of killing King Laius. It is mainly because of that “mystery” approach to the story; this article is the most interesting and appealing.
In conclusion, through the minimal amount of supporting details in Fosso’s article “Oedipus crux: reasonable doubt in Oedipus the King” and the vague comparisons made in Shamir’s article “Oedipus Rex”, they remain to be the two least interesting articles. Koper’s article “Myth and Investigation in Oedipus Rex”, on the other hand, had concise supporting information and looked at the story from a unique and interesting standpoint. For these very reasons, “Myth and Investigation in Oedipus Rex” was definitely the most interesting and engaging article.