When the play opens, Oedipus and the Priest are speaking about the sickness that is plaguing the city “The town is heavy with a mingled burden of sounds and smells, of groans and hymns and incense…” (Lines 3,4 spoken by Oedipus), a Blight is on the fruitful plants of the earth, a blight is on the cattle in the fields, a blight is on our women that no children are born to them; a God that carries fire, a deadly pestilence, is on our town (lines 26-30 spoken by the priest). Sickness is a timeless human experience to varying degrees from individual influenza to the l typhoid fever outbreak of NYC in 1906 lest we forget our own recent pandemic outbreak of 2020 from the year of 541 to present day humans have always experienced some sort of plague/epidemic or mass sickness. Another experience is death and murder. Murder is the oldest crime in history, and we’ve all been exposed to it either via firsthand experience or secondary through media such as news. Death takes many forms including suicide (which has a yearly average of 800,000 deaths documented globally). Death is the only constant in life. In the play Oedipus Rex kills King Laius, Oedipus’s Wife/Mother dies by her own hand after she learns of the incestuous relationship she had with her son.
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One thought on “Joseph Williams Discussion 7”
Hello Joseph! I enjoyed reading your discussion! I liked how you included the lines from the play to support your claim. I really enjoyed that you included lines 26-30. It is a vivid description of what Blight is, more specifically how it has a negative effect on their towns and the harm that can be done. I find it interesting that the priest said, “a God that carries fire, a deadly pestilence, is on our town.” This is because when I read the first part I immediately think to myself that God is carrying himself with grace and being fierce, and then when I continue to read the sentence I doubt myself because now I am thinking that he may be portraying God as a bad thing causing all of the harm to the towns.