The Critique of Oepidus
“A boy leads in the blind prophet Tiresias. Oedipus begs him to reveal who Laius’s murderer is, but Tiresias answers only that he knows the truth but wishes he did not. Puzzled at first, then angry, Oedipus insists that Tiresias tell Thebes what he knows. Provoked by the anger and insults of Oedipus, Tiresias begins to hint at his knowledge. Finally, when Oedipus furiously accuses Tiresias of the murder, Tiresias tells Oedipus that Oedipus himself is the curse.”
In this section, the characteristic swiftness of Oedipus’s thought, words, and action begins to work against him. When Tiresias arrives at line 340, Oedipus praises him as an all-powerful seer who has shielded Thebes from many a plague. Only forty lines later, he refers to Tiresias as “scum” and soon after that accuses him of treason. Oedipus sizes up a situation, makes a judgment, and acts all in an instant. While this confident expedience was laudable in the first section, it is exaggerated to a point of near absurdity in the second. Oedipus asks Tiresias and Creon questions are his typical mode of address and frequently a sign of his quick and intelligent mind but they are merely rhetorical, for they accuse and presume rather than seek answers. Though Tiresias has laid the truth out plainly before Oedipus, the only way Oedipus can interpret the prophet’s words is as an attack, and his quest for information only seeks to confirm what he already believes.
Antigone’s major conflict is between Creon and Antigone. Creon has declared that the body of Polynices may not be given a proper burial because he led the forces that invaded Thebes, but Antigone wishes to give her brother a proper burial nevertheless. The first conflict arises when Tiresias tells Oedipus that Oedipus is responsible for the plague, and Oedipus refuses to believe him. The problem is between Oedipus and Creon. Creon