Catharsis in Oedipus

The catharsis, or cleansing, in the play was most evident to me when Oedipus finally left the city at the end of the production.

The gods gave instruction to Creon that the city needed to be 'cleansed' to recover from the plague that was destroying it's citizens. Oedipus fought to find who it was that killed the king and to remove him from the city. He slowly began to realize that it was he who needed to remove himself. I think that is why he got as angry as he did about the prophecy being true. He knew that because he killed the king, he would have to follow his own admonition to leave the city forever.

The actors did a very good job at building the intensity of the situation throughout the entire production. When Jocasta hangs herself and Oedipus stabs his eyes out, I felt like we were all at an emotional high. Everyone was so concentrated on what had just happened, it was easy to forget that Oedipus would have to leave the city. Creon dramatically put a walking stick in front of Oedipus and it was then we knew that the city would finally be cleansed of the murderer of the king. Oedipus stumbled off stage, and the cleansing was complete. The gods called for cleansing, and it came to pass, just like they said it would.