Week 7
TYRANUS, Oedipus
It is with great sorrow that we announce the passing of Oedipus, beloved father and brother, only son of King Laius of Thebes. He was predeceased by his father Laius, his adoptive father Corinthian King Polybus and his mother-wife Jocasta. He is survived by his cherished daughter-sisters Antigone and Ismene, who stuck by him through the many trials of his later years, his adoptive mother Queen Merope of Corinth as well as his brother-sons Polyneices and Eteocles who did not, for which they are cursed to die by each other’s hand and his power hungry brother in law, Creon. Born a King in Thebes and brought up as a King in Isthmus, he died a refugee in Athens. He garnered much acclaim after he managed to rid Thebes of the Sphinx by solving her riddle, and went on to rule there for a number of years with a just and compassionate hand. After a lengthy period of exile from his beloved homeland of Thebes, King Theseus of Athens offered him protection in exchange for the good luck anticipated for the people living at his final resting place, a spot sacred to the furies, as it was prophesied by Apollo. At his own request, only his dear friend Theseus was present at his passing, and he alone knows the location of Oedipus’s tomb. In spite of the mistakes he made in his life, he died with peace and serenity, a wise man, where once stood a proud man.
“Our innocence and guilt brings us all to the same dust”
A celebration of life will be held at the Colonus in Athens. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the local chapter of Hubris Anonymous.
Extended Metaphors
Madeleine Thien makes use of an extended metaphor throughout her short story “Simple Recipes”. In discussing the difficulty she has reconciling the many complicated facets that make up her father’s personality the main character brings up recipes she learned from her father as a child. His good qualities, such as his ability to make something beautiful from nothing, to make his daughter feel “that all was well in the world” (45) or his undisguised pleasure in silly puns are undermined by his eruptive anger and violence. She wishes the process for dealing with all of the flaws a child finds in their parents, and in their family relationships as they begin to grow up were as simple as the recipe for perfect rice. She doesn’t miss the meals which are described with such loving detail, but rather the rituals contained within family meals, helping her father prepare it, the sitting down together, the magical unveiling by her father of plate after plate of steaming food, the laughter and pleasure of belonging, of loving and being loved. The repeated rinsing of the rice and the search for and removal of impurities she discusses in the last several paragraphs sound like the technique used to pan for gold. If it could be used on a person’s flaws it would be a perfecting of the imperfect soul within. The difficulty she experiences trying to fit the puzzle pieces of her father’s impurities and his better qualities together as a unified complex imperfect -and yet all too human- being make it impossible for her to love him until she realizes that like rice, humans have imperfections. Unfortunately, unlike rice we can’t just pick them out by a careful yet simple process to end up satisfied with what is left but must learn to live with and try to understand the imperfect whole.