Oedipus and the 'Other' Within Us All

In our theatre of social media, the modern chorus has become a cacophony of competing rights and opposing certainties where the contemporary curse is that of othering, writes Jake Arnott

Louis Bouwmeester in an 1896 production of Oedipus the King by Sophocles. Photo: Albert Greiner/Wikipedia

In the city of Thebes, at the height of a pandemic, the head of state Oedipus questions his most trusted advisor, Tiresias, as to who the worst transgressor in his country is. He receives a shocking answer. “You,” he is told, “you are the cursed polluter of this land.”

Here the lure of othering, that act of denigration used to secure one’s own status, baits its own trap. In a vain attempt to find some abnormal scapegoat for all the ills of his society, Oedipus discovers that it is himself, the “first of all men”, that is the worst of all offenders.

Sophocles’ Oedipus the King is a classical tragedy of identity politics.

As the ongoing drama of the ‘culture wars’ becomes ever more toxic, and the struggle over the narrative of self is played out as spectacle, it seems a good time to look at one of the founding myths of gender and sexuality.

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