Oedipus Rex, or "You'll Shoot Your Eye Out!"

I just finished reading Oedipus Rex and prepping to teach it tomorrow morning in my classes, and I just want to say here all the things that I can't say in class. I know that it's tragedy, and we are supposed to be studying it as an example of classical tragedy and all that, but all that I can think of is things that make me giggle.

The thing about teaching is that I get to teach really cool stuff, and that's great, but sometimes I feel like I'm supposed to be all serious, you know, like when it's tragedy and all, but I just can't find it in me to take it seriously. I mean, tragedy is supposed to elicit the "twin feelings" of "pity and fear," but I don't feel those at all. I just want to say, "Oedipus, get over yourself." And then I want to make really bad jokes like, "It's all Greek to me." And I know this is really immature and stuff, but it's how I feel about Oedpus right now.

I mean, hello, what does blinding himself actually accomplish anyway? I get why it works thematically. And Ican talk about Tieresias, the blind prophet, who is really the only one with insight. And I can talk about how fate works in the play. I can do all the things that, as a good teacher, I'm supposed to do with the play. But right now, I just don't want to.

Instead, I want to say, "Hey, does anyone remember the episode of Inspector Morse where he thinks that Oedipus Rex is the key to the mystery, but then it isn't?" Here's inspector Morse. Dolce Carina knows the episode I mean. I guess that this talk about Morse really demonstrates why it's important that my students read Sophocles' play--cultural literacy and all that. I mean, hey, we couldn't make sense of the Morse episode without knowing something about Oedipus.

Then, there's the whole Freudian thing we can talk about. I'm sure I will have to explain to my students that, yes, Oedipus does really have relations with his own biological mother. That's kind of the whole point. And they say how "gross" it is, which, again is kind of the whole point.

I know that I'm just being a little bit silly about it all. I really am interested in the literature as literature. It's just funnier to think of silly pop culture references. Like, "You'll shoot your eye out." Does everyone know that one?