Thursday, March 12, 2009

The Chosen Prophet

When I was asked by my drama’s lecturer Prof. Dr Edwin Malachi Vethamani to read Oedipus Rex, I felt so down because I knew that task will be difficult for me. Can you imagine a millennium guy like me reading an ancient text? It is going to be tough and I knew I will sleep every 5 minutes when I start to read the story. Well the good news is I am going to have a bedtime story!!

Surprisingly for your information, I started to like the story when I studied the play because I felt attracted to the character in the story. This story evolved around the main characters such as Oedipus Rex, Jocaste, Creon and Teiresias. The character is the strength of the story.

One of the characters in the story which is Teiresias really amazed me. Let me tell you something about him. He is a blind old man that been cursed by Goddess Athena. Why he been cursed? Who was him before he blind? Eager to know?

When he was young he was a normal guy who one day accidentally saw Goddess Athena bathing while he was walking around. Such unlucky man he was. He had been cursed by Goddess Athena and turned blind. To make it worse when Goddess Athena knew that he was innocent she cannot take back the curse so she gave him a gift.

He became a prophet!! When he became old, Oedipus looked for his help. Oedipus wanted to find the murderer of King Laios so he needed the prophecy from Oedipus. There are other two interesting different tale on how Oedipus been cursed blind but had a gift to be a prophet.

You want to know the other tales? Well you need to work for it! Good luck! ;-)

1 comment:

  1. Hye Sean..

    I am bowled over on how you explain about Tiresias in the play Oedipus Rex. Yes, at first I had the same feeling as yours when I started to read the play. It is ancient story and it full with complex words that not from our language at all. After finished reading for some pages I find out that this play could give me a lot of messages that is significant to our life. For an example, the role of Tiresias tells me a lot of myself. Maybe the character might suite me but how he reacts to the king reminds me of myself. I do agree with you that he was unlucky man who being curse by god but he had more strength that ordinary people doesn’t had. For an example, even though he is blind but he could the world far away better than us. The word insight shows his identity as a prophet. I hope we share more about his role because it seemed that we have almost the common ideas about this play. Well done mate.

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