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Oedipus
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Character Analysis
Oedipus
Seneca draws upon the mythology surrounding Oedipus. Oedipus is the great-great-grandson of Cadmus, the founder of Thebes; the supposed, but actually adopted, son of King Polybus and Queen Merope; the son and killer of King Laius; the son and husband to Jocasta; and the father and brother to Eteocles, Polynices, Antigone, and Ismene. By choosing to adapt a well-known myth, Seneca shifts the play’s main focus away from the plot to instead focus on thematic questions of fate, knowledge, and leadership. The unfolding of how these events happen, and how they affect Oedipus, are Seneca’s primary concerns.
Oedipus dominates the play. For example, in Act I, he speaks all but 5.5 lines out of 109 lines. He features prominently throughout, with his speech and actions even dominating the one act where he is offstage. His self-reflective and introspective state drives the play’s inward turn, rendering the crisis first and foremost a personal instead of political one. Oedipus is an articulate character, speaking in both prose and verse. His use of both forms—prose and verse—reflects his status as a king and tragic hero, while also marking the play’s rhetorical style as a typical piece of Roman drama.
From the beginning of the play, Oedipus feels guilty and fearful, worrying that he may be responsible for the plague raging in Thebes. Oedipus’s unease is due in part to his awareness of his supreme responsibility as king and in part to his awareness of the prophecy. He subconsciously suspects he is to blame for a past fault, but he is ignorant of the specifics of the crime. This aspect of his character contrasts sharply with Sophocles’s Oedipus, who is proud and imperious. Seneca’s representation of Oedipus complicates his tragic flaw, as Oedipus does not openly display the hubris, or overweening pride, that Sophocles describes. From the beginning, Oedipus seeks to find the truth and protect his city, even if it means implicating himself. The root of Oedipus’s downfall, then, is centered upon his attempts to alter fate earlier in his life. Oedipus fully takes responsibility for his role in the plague, blinding and exiling himself once the truth has been revealed as a long-lasting punishment for his youthful hubris.
Jocasta
Jocasta is the wife of the murdered King Laius, sister to Creon, and mother and wife to Oedipus. Jocasta appears in three acts, more than any other character apart from Oedipus. At the start of the play, she is presented as a comical but ideal Roman wife and queen. Her first brief moment onstage has her criticizing her husband and pointing him toward proper kingly behavior. Once she helps Oedipus regain his kingly character, having only spoken 5.5 lines, her silence and unannounced exit reflect her status as a proud wife. In Act IV, she continues fulfilling this confident role by giving straightforward answers to her husband’s questions about the past.
In Act VI, a shift takes place in Jocasta’s character. Now aware of her status as both mother and wife to Oedipus, she shows great emotion as she “rushes out wild and frantic” (VI.1004). The chorus compares her to “the frenzied Cadmean mother who ripped / Her son’s head in rage” (VI.1005-1006). This reference alludes to Agave, the daughter of Thebe’s founder Cadmus. In the midst of political machinations and violent reprisals, Agave, driven mad by Dionysus to think that her son Pentheus is a lion, mutilates her son’s corpse. Like Jocasta, she only discovers “what she’d done” (VI.1006) and realizes the truth when Cadmus confronts her. Just like Agave, Jocasta has unwittingly harmed her own son. Furthermore, the chorus’s announcement of her entrance into this scene underscores her change in status. Jocasta begins speaking mid-line, emphasizing her frenzied reaction to the revelation.
Jocasta’s struggle to address Oedipus reflects language’s inability to fully capture reality while also emphasizing the importance of language. Jocasta shifts to the role of mother when “[t]ragedy conquers shame” (VI.1008), deciding to comfort Oedipus as a mother would a son. Yet she cannot initially decide what she should call Oedipus. Her struggles cause her “first words [to] clog her mouth” (VI.1009). Words physically affect her. Once she settles on “son,” her language creates a reality in which Oedipus also participates, easily calling her his mother twice in quick succession.
Like her husband-son, Jocasta imposes her own punishment upon herself. By stabbing herself through her “teeming womb which bore husband and sons” (VI.1039), she acknowledges her incestuous relationship with her son. The phallic imagery of Jocasta stabbing herself with Oedipus’s sword underlines the sexual nature of their transgression, while also granting Jocasta a certain degree of traditionally masculine strength and resolve—like Oedipus, she too is determined to atone for her sins.
Creon
Creon is part of the royal family, as he is Jocasta’s brother and Oedipus’s uncle and brother-in-law. He serves as an adviser to Oedipus. In Seneca’s play, Creon is extremely loyal to Oedipus, and it is this loyalty that causes him to hesitate in telling Oedipus the truth. His characterization in Seneca’s play sharply contrasts with Sophocles’s. In Sophocles’s play, Creon is a stereotypical politician who lies, schemes, and manipulates, often secretly. He has very little loyalty to Oedipus; when he has the chance to banish Oedipus and assume power himself, he takes it. In his own retelling, Seneca does not have Creon banish Oedipus or mention Creon’s ascension to the throne. When Oedipus accuses Creon of falsely reporting Tiresias’s message, suggesting that Tiresias was “promising [Oedipus’s] sceptre to” (III.670) him, Creon defends himself, saying, “Necessity now makes [Oedipus] bear [his] fortune” (III.681). Creon prefers to “reap the rewards of kingship without / Kingly cares” (III.687-688), as he is well aware of the heavy responsibilities a king faces. In presenting Creon as loyal and politically disinterested, Seneca keeps the focus on Oedipus’s moral dilemmas instead of creating a subplot about power struggles.
Upon his imprisonment for treason, Creon disappears from the play. Once Creon shares the message from Laius’s ghost, the play hurtles toward its tragic conclusion. His reluctant actions spark Oedipus’s realization. Creon’s inability to prevent Oedipus from learning this information further reflects the impossibility of changing fate.
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