In the drama Oedipus the King, Queen Jocasta illustrates the annihilating effects of perpetuating 1s sin instead than facing it. Motivated to conceal her ain shame, Jocasta sets into gesture and perpetuates a series of events that she intended to forestall, but finally accepts at Oedipus disbursal. Throughout the drama she attempts to conceal the truth by fraudulence and feigned incredulity.
Long before the drama of all time begins Jocasta sets into gesture the events that lead up to the tragic stoping of Oedipus the King. She was so ashamed to be the female parent of a kid with such a blue hereafter that she had him project out onto a mountain. By this action and her deficiency of action as a parent she decided Oedipus fate. This is the first illustration of Jocastas s shame and fraudulence.
my boy he wasn t three yearss old and the male child s male parent fastened his mortise joints, had a henchman fling him off on a waste, trackless mountain.
Jocasta most surely cast-out her boy because of the shame he brought on her. Later in lines 1289-1291 we see the herder testify that Jocasta was the 1 who gave him the kid with the charge to kill it. Now she is ashamed of what she did and to liberate herself from that guilt she consciously lies to herself and those around her about what happened.
When Oedipus comes to Thebes before the beginning of the drama, Jocasta s shame is compounded. Jocasta knew the prognostication that foretold the decease of her hubby by her boy s manus, and her likely incestuous matrimony. She believed the prognostication and had her boy cast-out because of it. After her hubby had died, a immature alien from a foreign land was to take her for his married woman. Jocasta rapidly identified this alien, Oedipus, as her boy from long ago. Her apprehension of the prognostication, Oedipus ankles, the directing off of the lone informant to the slaying of her hubby, and her composure after hearing Tiresias accusals indicate that she knew Oedipus true individuality before their bridal. Why did Jocasta marry Oedipus knowing he was her boy? If Jocasta did non get married Oedipus she would hold to give some ground. Had she cited the prognostication and said that he was her boy she would heap shame on her caput. She would hold to publically dishonor her boy and herself by admiting that her boy killed his male parent, her hubby tried to kill her boy and the prognostication was being fulfilled even after she tried to forestall it. Marrying and matching with her boy, with no 1 of all time cognizing the truth, was the lone manner Jocasta could get away public and private humiliation.
Jocasta wittingly chose to carry through the prognostication, while Oedipus was incognizant, in order to conceal her shame and guilt. She made herself believe that if the prognostication was fulfilled and no 1 was the wiser she and her boy could populate the remainder of their lives as a happy twosome free of public shame or guilt. Even so, Jocasta could non liberate herself from the shame she knew she dullard. She lived a life of prevarications and publically dismissed the prognostication, which she knew to be true, in order to convert herself and those around her that all was good. Jocasta used the word stealers while others use the word travellers to depict the slayer ( s ) of King Laius. She repeatedly tried to convert Oedipus that there was no credibleness in what the prophets prophesied.
A prophesier? Well so, free yourself of every charge! Listen to me and larn some piece of head: no accomplishment in the universe, nil can perforate the hereafter. Here is proof, speedy and to the point.
( 778-783 )
She goes on to state of the birth and casting-out of her boy and of the decease of Laius, in an effort to turn out the Prophetss have no credibleness ( cognizing all along that they are right in every item ) . Despite her attempt to convert Oedipus of the humbleness of the prognostication Oedipus could non be convinced. Jocasta begins to go despairing. Her full universe, a universe of prevarications, would crumple if the truth were discovered.
Jocasta s actions might look to be the calming function of a married woman in this state of affairs, but her motivations are more egoistic. She knows the prognostication has been fulfilled and if Oedipus discovers it her shame and guilt will be laid bare for all to see. This fact becomes more obvious when the courier from Corinth arrives. Oedipus begins to see how a atrocious trap is squashing around his cervix. Jocasta knows she set the trap long ago, a trap for Oedipus every bit good as herself. She knows Oedipus is close to jumping this trap and begs him to halt examining the issue.
Stop in the name of God, if you love your ain life, name off this hunt! My agony is adequate.
( 1161-1163 )
Jocasta has suffered in private for old ages and old ages, but nil is more terrorizing to her than the public discovering her shame.
Oedipus, set on detecting the truth about his birth, dashes all of Jocasta s hopes of abandoning the hunt.
Hurry, bring me the herder, now! Leave her to glorification in her royal birth.
( 1174-1175 )
Jocasta s shame of class is his royal birth. The truth is near at manus. All of her prevarications and shame are about to be revealed and she is powerless to halt it. All she can make now is curse him with the name she gave him at birth when she tried to hold him killed:
adult male of torment that is the lone name I have for you, that no other of all time, of all time, of all time!
( 1176-1178 )
At this minute she can t bear any more. The torment of her ain wickednesss, her ain shame is bearing down with all its weight on her bosom.
There is no flight for Jocasta from the trap she has set by her ain actions and fraudulence. The lone flight from her shame is suicide. Still true to organize, in the last proceedingss of her life she is unable to admit that she brought this all down on her ain caput. She blamed Laius. She wept for what had happened to her. Never one time did she show sorrow or inquire forgiveness for what she did to the lives of those close to her. In the terminal consumed by her ain ego commiseration and shame for what had been done to her she hung herself on the bed where she laid volitionally with the boy she was so shamed by.
By her ain actions Jocasta is a victim in Oedipus the King ; but more, she is a accelerator for the victimization of others. Driven by her ain disdainful nature, her actions wove a cyberspace in which she and Oedipus were caught. The character Jocasta illustrates how one single s offenses can impact those they love the most. Jocasta wanted Oedipus to be happy, but was unable to do it so because of her ain shame. This is the cosmopolitan truth of Oedipus the King: When we, like Jocasta, load ourselves with private guilt or shame we are unable to freely and entirely loves those around us. Unfortunately, we may really do great hurting in their lives, merely as Jocasta did.
