Epistemology and the Legend of the Sphinx in Oedipus Rex Research Paper

Epistemology and the Legend of the Sphinx in Oedipus Rex - Research Paper Example The idea of pharmakos in Oedipus Rex is embodied in the interaction between the sphinx and Oedipus and how the sphinx guards and reveals knowledge. Pharmakos is the idea that there is a duality to things; that an item can be both a cure and a poison. The sphinx is used as a pharmakos in Oedipus Rex because not only does her physical appearance portray a duality, but also her riddles conceal knowledge in their ambiguity, but also in a sense, reveal truth concerning Oedipus and the Greek society. Epistemology Epistemology can be defined as the branch of philosophy that looks at the nature, origin, methods, as well as limits of human knowledge. It seeks to answer the question of how to distinguish true knowledge from false knowledge. One of the outstanding epistemological problems in Oedipus Rex is the ambiguity presented in terms of the nature and extents of Oedipus’ knowledge about his true origins (Carel 103). Many philosophers have argued that Oedipus may have been too ignora nt to figure out facts about his past. However, at the beginning of the play, his intelligence is well portrayed when he is the only man who has the ability to solve the riddle of the sphinx. This ambiguity brings forth the vagueness of the extent to which Oedipus can and should be held responsible for his actions, which are: killing his biological father and marrying his own mother. Sophocles tells the story of Oedipus in reverse: he starts with the ending and goes to explain how it happened. According to the oracle, the plague that has befallen Thebes will find no cure until the person responsible for the murder of King Laius is found and expelled from the city. Oedipus starts an investigation to reveal the murderer, but this investigation quickly turns into an investigation of Oedipus’ real identity. Initially the epistemology lies around finding an answer to the question â€Å"who did it†, but this changes course to the question â€Å"who am I?† (Foster 22)T he psychological journey of discovery takes up much of this story. Knowledge is supposed to end with gratification and satisfaction. However, in this story, epistemology led to a discovery that was more tragic than the events that led to the discovery itself. The Sphinx The word sphinx comes form the Greek verb which when translated means â€Å"to squeeze† or to tighten (Gosse 65). Some historians however argue that the word is a corruption of the Egyptian word â€Å"shesepankh† which translates to â€Å"living image† (Zivie-Coche and Lorton 9). In Greek mythology the Sphinx is represented as having a serpent’s tail, a lion’s hunches, a large bird’s wings and a woman’s breast and face. This malevolent creature is normally characterized as being merciless and treacherous. She is the demon of bad luck and destruction and kills and mauls those who fail to correctly answer her riddle. According to myths, the sphinx was the guardian of the gates into the City of Thebes. To be allowed entry, one had to correctly answer her riddle. The riddle is â€Å"which creature has four legs in the morning, two at midday and three in the evening, and the more legs it has, the weaker it is? It is said that no man had ever been able to give a correct answer to the riddle (10). Oedipus was the only one who gave the correct answer which was ‘man’. After Oedipus gave the correct answer, the sphinx is said to have been infuriated and she killed herself. The original purpose of the sphinx

Was there a gap between the rhetoric of hope and democracy peddled by Essay

Was there a gap between the rhetoric of hope and democracy peddled by American institutions and leaders and the reality on the g - Essay Example As a function of understanding this unique period of American history, this brief essay will analyze this period with relation to the experience that different formerly marginalized groups had. The groups included within the analysis will include women, Native Americans, African Americans, and the various new immigrants that landed on American soil as a result of systemic and societal changes throughout Europe and the rest of the world.1 Finally, the essay will seek to answer the question of whether or not there was a gap with regards to the level of democracy that the system promised and what was actually realized within the masses of citizens of the republic. With regards to the experience that post-Reconstruction brought to women, this was a period in which the emancipation and ultimate freedom that the former slaves had realized served to entice the women’s suffrage movement to begin to stir.2 The result of this stir was also due to the fact that many former anti-slavery a dvocates were women and it was realized that defined and sustained political action by such groups could make a discernable and lasting impact on the future of politics within the nation. As a function of this, suffragists and other individual issue groups began to ply the political channels in the United States. Although it took many decades for this movement to eventually be heard, the realization of political power that was born from the end of slavery served to embolden this group of shareholders to demand a more active and integrative political process within the nation. Similarly, due to the changes that the end of slavery had afforded to recently freed African Americans, there were many positive and negative externalities that soon existed for this demographic. Firstly, with regards to the positive changes, an amendment to the Constitution made it possible for black men to have a voice in the way that the nation grew and expanded. This of course helped to provide a previously disenfranchised group of individuals with a small portion of the political power that they should have held all along. Sadly, this and the end to slavery were some of the only positive factors that integrated themselves with the African American experience in the Post-Reconstruction era. The fact of the matter was that in an era in which the civil rights of African Americans should have flourished the most, a litany of Jim Crow laws popped up all over the country which practically relegated these individuals to a form of second class citizenship. Unable to eat, drink, or even wait in the same waiting rooms as whites, African Americans saw many of the hopes and dreams of equality that they had held after the conclusion of the Civil War and the beginning of the Reconstruction fade into something of an unrealistic dream.3 Similarly, with regards to the employment outlook and opportunity that existed for these recently freed slaves; this too was a difficult if not impossible. Sharecrop ping came to represent a new form of enslavement whereby the landed aristocracy was able to subjugate the lower classes into a type of generational and perpetual servitude.4 With regards to Native Americans, their plight was perhaps