Essay On The Infernal Machine And Oedipus The King

Oedipus is abandoned his father, King Laius, because his father hears a prophecy that Oedipus is to kill his father and marry his mother, Jocasta. Oedipus is adopted and later hears that same prophecy, and goes in search for the truth. Along the way he gets in a fight with a man and kills him. The man he killed was his father but Oedipus did not know that. He then solves a riddle from the Sphinx which has been terrorizing a kingdom. For solving the riddle, the kingdom gives him their queen to marry, who is his biological mother. This is the myth of Oedipus.
Cocteau’s The Infernal Machine and Sophocles’s Oedipus the King are both centered on the myth, yet their themes are different. By changing Oedipus’s personality, motive, relationship with Jocasta, and his character development Cocteau makes his theme the idea that the gods basically just play with humans, instead of like Sophocles’s theme that man cannot escape his own fate.
Cocteau’s Oedipus does not have to solve the riddle of the Sphinx because she gives him the answer and then gives him a body to take to Thebes. Oedipus’s only concern how he should carry the Sphinx’s body. In The Infernal Machine Oedipus’s pride is like that of a young teenager, in that he feels nothing can hurt him. This pride brings out his temper only once in the play. It is when he is speaking with the Sphinx.
Sophocles’s Oedipus has a greater pride that is constantly setting off his temper. From the very beginning when he accuses Creon, the brother of the queen of Thebes, of plotting against him he lashes out and threatens that he would kill him and not just banish him. This temper lasts throughout the play even towards the end. In a way both characters have the same temper, however Cocteau only sh...

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...e. Oedipus may have committed terrible crimes yet his family still stands with him. So in that sense humans can find hope in their mortal relationships. Sophocles’s theme was that one cannot escape his fate. Oedipus was portray as a bright and good king who did everything he could to not fulfill the horrible oracle. Even though he was this great man he still could not escape his fate.
Both of these plays are centered on the same general myth; however each has a different theme, which is supported by the change in Oedipus’s character. Oedipus falls in both plays but for different reasons. In The Infernal Machine he falls because he is weak against the gods, however in Oedipus the King he falls due to his own pride which forces him to discover the truth. This myth is still present today in our own political figures, just as it was in ancient times and 1930’s France.