interested in the ways the play engages with the larger community, especially at a time of widespread suffering. Instead of analyzing Oedipus’ story for the questions it raises about the leadership of the powerful few, I will evaluate it for the epistemological questions it asks the ordinary many. In my reading, Oedipus Tyrannos is a play about a community suffering under plague and famine. Unbeknownst to them, the plague is a punishment from the gods for the religious pollution caused by King Oedipus’ killing of his father, the previous king, Laius, and marriage to his mother, Jocasta. Ironically, in their misery, the citizens of Thebes have no option but to appeal to Oedipus as their leader for help. This sets him on the path that reveals his horrific past actions and true identity. Notably, the play does not stage the actions themselves, but rather the complicated processes by which hidden, obscured, and misunderstood past actions are revealed and become known. Oedipus cycles through initial eagerness to serve his people, through a defensive rejection of the assertion that he is the cause of the plague, to the sickening realization and acceptance of it as fact. Other characters likewise struggle with the truth. Those who know it, like Tiresias and later Jocasta, attempt to shield others from the burden of knowing. None of the characters, however, can deny the truth by the end of the play, and all are forced to face it without the protection of a shield of ignorance. Oedipus Tyrannos thus presents crises of immunity on two levels. The citizens of Thebes lack physical immunity from the grievous plague, while many of its characters display epistemological immunity, resisting knowledge essential to the righting of religious wrongs. The themes of immunity from plague and knowledge exist not only within the play itself but extend into historical Athens and our contemporary world. Each of these three “interpretive layers” allow us to explore the epistemological struggle of a community suffering under pestilence, while also enhancing our understanding of the others. Sophocles’ play does not open with Oedipus’ triumphant ascent to the throne, having solved the Sphinx’s riddle. These events precede the action of the play. Instead, Oedipus Tyrannos begins with a community lamenting their loss. A grievous plague has descended upon the city of Thebes, corrupting the land and disrupting the livelihoods of the citizens. They send a priest to voice their collective appeal to their king, Oedipus, for a solution. The priest focuses on the suffering city to detail the horrors and pestilence that have descended upon the homes of the citizens he represents: Thebes is tossed on a murdering sea and cannot lift her head from the death surge. A rust consumes the buds and fruits of the earth; the herds are sick; children die unborn, the labor is vain. The god of plague and pyre raids like detestable lightning through the city, and 42
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