It is only logical that after reading Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex that we watch a video featuring Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs, right? Maybe not, but the connection should become clear after you watch the video.

Our (my) goal in this class is to help you understand the connections between fiction and reality—that the stories we tell must in some way mirror our lives in a way that is sometimes obvious, oftentimes obscure.

A student asked today why Oedipus is relevant today. This was a great question (and one you should always ask of all your classes). Here’s the response I gave:

Oedipus’ story is relevant because it is essential. That may seem like a circular definition, but by “essential” I mean “basic to the human condition.” I gave a few examples of non-essential literature, both graphic novels because I knew the student was familiar with them: Watchmen and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, both of which happen to be by Alan Moore. Watchmen is a brilliant revision of our view of superheroes; one that takes familiar characters (such as Batman) and subverts them (The Nite Owl) in a way that makes us see these characters in a different light. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen does something similar with characters from Victorian and Edwardian literature. The original superheroes and the characters from the late 19th century reflect earlier characters, and so on. Part of the fun of reading them is “getting” the references, and having one’s notions turned on their head. The other part of our interest in them is that they provide an interesting perspective on what it means to be human (in a skewed or magnified way, in the case of superheroes).

Oedipus, for modern readers, contains only the latter. Oedipus’ story is tragedy in it’s most pure form, and it is the simplicity of the story that speaks to all of us, that makes it essential.

In this video, Mike Rowe experiences what Aristotle called anagnorisis and peripeteia when castrating sheep. Oedipus is a pure example of a man whose view of his own life is turned upside down (peripeteia) by a single realization (anagnorisis).

Beyond the Freudian interpretations (every man is in a battle to overcome his father’s shadow, etc), Oedipus, with the simplicity of a fairy tale, clearly highlights an aspect of our own lives (hopefully not literally) directly, without muddying the vision by relying on previous works.

That’s why we read Oedipus.

Click through if you’re having trouble watching it here.

A few things to consider:

• Posting comments below is a good thing.
• As I said last year, it might be easy to jump to the conclusion that conservatives are conformists and liberals are rebels, it goes much deeper than such absolutes. We’ll talk tomorrow.
• Read through chapter 12 for our discussion on Tuesday.

We’ll be discussing the novel through chapter 9 tomorrow (Thursday).

Read through chapter five this weekend. Be sure to journal as you go, as we will be using them in our discussion on Monday. It might be a good idea to read chapter three twice, as Huxley plays with the narrative a bit and it’s easy to get the conversation jumbled.

That Has Such People In’t! ((Shakespeare. The Tempest. V.i.)) ((Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: HarperCollins, 1998. 139. Print.))

We read Harlan Ellison’s “’Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” in class today to begin our discussion of conformity and rebellion. Here are some things to consider as we move forward:

• What is this freedom thing, and why is it so important to us?
• What is conformity? Rebellion?
• What do each do for us?
• In what kinds of situations are either of them appropriate?

I passed out copies of Brave New World in class. You should read through chapter two for tomorrow. Also, fill out the form here so I can keep track of all of them. (Don’t worry about it if you emailed me earlier.)