Oedipus Rex

By Sophocles

Literature & Composition Mr. Baker 2014 – 2015

2

Table of contents

Setting/Background……………………………………………… 3 Reading sign ups……………………………………………………. 4 Vocabulary………………………………………………………….5 4 Corners……………………………………………………………. 6 Motif Tracking…………………….……………………………….7 Reading comprehension ?’s/Focused Annotation….…..… 8 Critical Readings……………………………………………….….17 Motif Essay assignment & Materials…………...………….. 23 Essential Questions:

1) How does art reflect and impact a culture’s values? 2) What are An individual's responsibilities to his/her

society? 3) How does an author use motif to develop theme?

Unit Objectives • Compare  the  role  of  fiction  in  ancient  Greece  and  today.  • Describe  the  effect  of  authors’  word  choices  on  meaning  and  mood.  • Identify  how  patterns  of  word  choices  and  literary  devices  create  a  motif.  • Make  claims  about  how  motif  contributes  to  theme  development.  • Select  appropriate  evidence  of  motifs  to  support  claims  about  theme.  • Analyze  motif  to  show  how  it  supports  claims.  • Organize  evidence  and  analysis  to  logically  build  support  of  claim.  

3

Historical Setting for Oedipus Rex

Title: Oedipus Rex (or Oedipus the King)

Author: Sophocles, a Greek dramatist, 496-406 BCE

Background of the Story of Oedipus Place: Thebes,  a  city  in  ancient  Greece  Events prior to the beginning of the play: Oedipus  is  a  wanderer  who  leaves  his  home  in  his  youth  because  he  hears  that  the  city  of  Thebes  is  under  siege  by  the  Sphinx.    The  Sphinx  is  a  monster  shaped  like  a  winged  lion  with  the  breasts  and  head  of  a  woman.    The  Sphinx  waits  on  the  roads  to  the  city  of  Thebes,  stops  any  traveler,  offers  a  riddle,  and  if  they  fail  to  answer  her  riddle,  she  eats  them.  (According  to  legend,  she  kills  by  _______________________  her  victim,  thus  giving  us  the  modern  word  _______________________.)    Her  riddle  is,  “What  creature  walks  on  all  four  in  the  morning,  two  in  the  afternoon,  and  three  in  the  evening?”    Meanwhile,  the  king  of  Thebes,  Laios,  is  murdered,  but  the  city  is  too  busy  with  the  Sphinx  to  find  revenge.     Oedipus,  courageous  and  intelligent,  has  nothing  to  lose,  so  he  seeks  out  the  Sphinx’s  challenge.    He  answers  the  riddle  (_________),  and  the  Sphinx  kills  herself.    To  show  their  gratitude,  the  people  of  Thebes  make  Oedipus  their  king  and  Iocaste  (pronounced  with  a  “J”),  the  widowed  queen,  marries  Oedipus.    Four  children  later,  Oedipus’  good  times  seem  to  have  come  to  an  end.    A  plague  strikes  the  city  of  Thebes  and  the  citizens  and  herds  alike  are  dying  from  disease.    Those  alive  are  suffering  from  starvation  and  crowd  the  steps  of  the  palace  of  King  Oedipus,  suppliants  begging  their  king  to  help  them  out  of  their  troubles  once  again.  

Players: Oedipus:  King  of  Thebes  Iocaste  (pronounced  with  a  “J”):  Oedipus’  wife,  was  Laios’  wife  Creon:  Iocaste’s  brother,  counselor  to  Oedipus  Teiresias:  blind  prophet  of  Thebes,  counselor  to  Oedipus  and  Creon  Choragos:  leader  of  the  Chorus;  comes  forward  and  interacts  with  other  characters  Chorus:  Theban  elders,  a  company  of  performers  whose  singing,  dancing,  and  narration  provide  explanation  and  elaboration  of  the  main  actions;  do  not  interact  with  other  characters  Priest:  Theban  elder  with  religious  duties  Messenger  Shepherd  of  Laios:  shepherd  of  former  king  Laios  Second  Messenger  

Important people or gods who are referenced:

Kadmos:  Legendary  founder  of  Thebes  Kadmos,  Polydoros,  and  Labdakos:  Laios’  paternal  ancestors  Menoikeus:  Father  of  Iocaste  and  Creon  Polybos  and  Merope  of  Corinth:  Father  and  mother  of  Oedipus  Athena  (Pallas):  goddess  of  wisdom  and  warfare;  daughter  of  Zeus  Apollo:  god  of  the  sun,  god  of  music,  poetry,  prophecy,  and  medicine,  represented  as  exemplifying  manly  youth  and  beauty;  son  of  Zeus.    Delphi,  the  location  of  the  Delphic  oracle  and  Pythian  priestess,  is  dedicated  to  Apollo.  Artemis:  Apollo’s  twin;  goddess  of  the  moon,  the  hunt,  forests,  and  childbirth;  daughter  of  Zeus  

4

Reading Sign-ups

Chorus

Strophe 1: _______________

a-strophe 1: _______________

strophe 2: _______________

a-strophe 2: _______________

Strophe 3: _______________

a-strophe 3: _______________

Prologue

Oedipus: _______________

Priest: _______________

Creon: _______________

scene 1

Oedipus: _______________

Choragos: _______________

Teiresias: _______________

scene 2

creon: _______________

choragus: _______________

Oedipus: _______________

Jocaste _______________

Scene 3

Choragos: _______________

Oedipus: _______________

Jocaste: _______________

Messenger: _______________

scene 4

Oedipus: _______________

Choragos: _______________

Messenger: _______________

Shepherd: _______________

êxodos

2nd mess: _______________

Oedipus: _______________

Choragos: _______________

Creon: _______________

5

1. augury (noun) prophecy; prediction of events [also: augur (noun)- one who makes predictions]

2. bane (noun) a cause of harm, ruin, or death 3. clairvoyant

(adjective or noun) (adj.) supernaturally perceptive-seeing into the future ; (n.) one who possesses extrasensory powers, see

4. comely (adjective) having a pleasing appearance 5. courser (noun) a swift-running horse 6. defile (verb) To make unclean, impure; to pollute

[Defilement=noun; defiled= adjective] 7. divination (noun) (n.) the art or act of predicting the future or discovering hidden

knowledge 8. duplicity (noun) treachery, deceitfulness

[Duplicitous= adjective] 9. execrable

(adjective) utterly detestable; abominable; abhorrent

10. expedient (adjective)

convenient; speedy

11. flinty (adjective) extremely hard and firm; unyielding in character 12. haughty (adjective) Arrogant, excessively proud and vain

[Haughtiness= noun] 13. hearsay (noun) A statement by a witness who did not actually see or hear an event,

but who heard about it from someone else 14. impious (adjective) Disrespectful toward God

[pious= very devout & religious] 15. incarnate

(adjective) Embodied in human form.

16. infamy (noun) Disgrace, dishonor, bad reputation [infamous=adjective]

17. insolence (noun) (n) rude or impertinent behavior or speech [insolent= adjective]

18. lustration (noun) purification ; has a religious/ceremonial connotation 19. malediction (noun) A curse 20. overwrought

(adjective) Excessively nervous or excited; agitated [wrought means "to work/worked" so the word translates to "too worked up"

21. pallid (adjective) Lacking color; dull 22. parricide (noun) Killing one's father

[you should be able to predict what many of these words mean based on prefix and suffix: regicide=killing of a king; suicide= killing of one's self; fratricide= killing one's brother]

23. rankle (verb) To cause anger, irritation, or bitterness [Adjective=rankled]

24. riven (adjective) torn apart; split [to rive= verb]

25. to maunder(verb) to talk in a rambling, foolish or meaningless way [adjective= maundering]

Vocabulary -Oedipus Rex-Fitzgerald Translation Study online at quizlet.com/_12kl3d

6

“4 Corners”/Spectrum of Belief: You may choose to Agree, Strongly Agree, disagree or Strongly Disagree

with the following statements. Then you must Explain WHY you feel the way

you do. During the activity you will be asked to defend your claims.

1) “the greatest illusion we have is that denial protects us.”~Eve Ensler

2) IT is important to always strive for the truth.

3) Good leaders should follow the advice of those who they trust.

4) Other people know me better than I know myself.

5) “Denial helps us to pace our feelings of grief. There is a grace in denial.” ~Elisabeth Kubler Ross

6) Self-Confidence is a positive character trait.

7

Motif Tracking While We Read

Directions: Instead  of  annotating  as  you  read,  you  will  flag  instances  of  various  

motifs  throughout  the  text.    

 

Using  post-­its,  you  need  to  assign  each  of  the  motifs  a  color  and  then  mark  them  in  your  

book  every  time  they  appear.  

 

You  should  use  a  post-­it  to  create  a  key  in  the  front  of  your  book.    

It  should  look  like  this:  

 

Motifs   Related  Terms   Assigned  Color  

Sight  

 

 

 

 

 

Light  

 

 

 

 

 

Family  

 

 

 

 

 

Justice  

 

 

 

 

 

8

Reading Comprehension/Annotation Exercises  

Directions: Answer all questions in full and complete sentences. You need to include a direct quotation in at least TWO of your responses per section.

Prologue:

1. How does Oedipus view himself? What type of leader does he say he is?

2. What is Oedipus’ attitude toward the suppliants (citizens begging for help)?

3. What are the conditions like in Thebes at the beginning of the play? What’s the “ethos” of the

play? Look to the Priest description for help.

4. According to Creon, what does the Oracle say must be done in order to cure Thebes of the

plague?

5. What prevented the citizens of Thebes from investigating Laios’ death?

9

Directions: Answer all questions in full and complete sentences. You need to include a direct quotation in at least TWO of your responses per section.

Scene i:

1. Find an example of dramatic irony in Oedipus’ speech that begins scene 1. Explain how the

example fits the definition.

2. What does Oedipus propose as a punishment for the murder?

3. Who is Teiresias? What is his reaction to Oedipus’ request for help?

4. Of what does Oedipus accuse Teiresias?

5. What does Teiresias reveal to Oedipus? Does Oedipus believe him?

6. What does Teiresias predict will happen to Oedipus?

10

Directions: Answer all questions in full and complete sentences. You need to include a direct quotation in at least TWO of your responses per section.

Scene 2:

1. How does Choragos explain Oedipus’ behavior and accusations?

2. Does Creon regret calling for Teiresias? How do you know?

3. Why doesn’t Creon want to be king? Do you think his arguments are justified?

4. What does Iocaste think about soothsayers and predictions?

5. What is Oedipus’ story about Corinth? What happened there?

6. Why are Oedipus and Iocaste upset at the end of Scene II?

11

Directions: You may work with a group of 4 people to complete this assignment. Please annotate the ode and then summarize each stanza.

Ode 2: Let me be reverent in the ways of right,

Lowly the paths I journey on;

Let all my words and actions keep

The laws of the pure universe

From highest Heaven handed down.

For Heaven is their bright nurse,

Those generations of the realms of light;

Ah, never of mortal kind were they begot,

Nor are they slaves of memory, lost in sleep:

Their Father is greater than Time, and ages not.

Summarize this stanza. How would you describe the tone? The tyrant is a child of Pride

Who drinks from his great sickening cup

Recklessness and vanity,

Until from his high crest headlong

He plummets to the dust of hope.

That strong man is not strong.

But let no fair ambition be denied;

May God protect the wrestler for the State

In government, in comely policy,

Who will fear God, and on His ordinance wait.

Summarize this stanza. How would you describe the tone?

12

Haughtiness and the high hand of disdain

Tempt and outrage God’s holy law;

And any mortal who dares hold

No immortal Power in awe

Will be caught up in a net of pain:

The price for which his levity is sold.

Let each man take due earnings, then,

And keep his hands from holy things,

And from blasphemy stand apart—

Else the crackling blast of heaven

Blows on his head, and on his desperate heart;

Through fools will honor impious men,

In their cities no tragic poet sings.

Summarize this stanza. How would you describe the tone? Shall we lose faith in Delphi’s obscurities,

We who have heard the world’s core

Discredited, and the sacred wood

Of Zeus at Elis praised no more?

The deeds and the strange prophecies

Must make a pattern yet to be understood.

Zeus, if indeed you are lord of all,

Throned in light over night and day,

Mirror this in your endless mind:

Our masters call the oracle

Words on the wind, and the Delphic vision blind!

Their hearts no longer know Apollo,

And reverence for the gods has died away.

Summarize this stanza. How would you describe the tone?

13

Directions: Answer all questions in full and complete sentences. You need to include a direct quotation in at least TWO of your responses per section.

Scene 3:

1. What news brings the messenger to Thebes?

2. Why are the Thebans so happy about the news?

3. Why doesn’t Oedipus feel relieved?

4. Why does Iocaste start to hesitate about the investigation? What does she say to try and stop

it?

5. Why does Oedipus think she is hesitating?

6. Cite an example of dramatic irony from Oedipus’ last speech and explain it.

14

Directions: Answer all questions in full and complete sentences. You need to include a direct quotation in at least TWO of your responses per section.

Scene 4:

1. How does Oedipus know that he can trust the shepherd?

2. Why does the shepherd tell the messenger to stop talking? What does the shepherd know that

the messenger does not?

3. Why did the shepherd give the baby away?

4. What is Oedipus’ reaction to the news?

15

Directions: Answer all questions in full and complete sentences. You need to include a direct quotation in at least TWO of your responses per section. Ode IV

1.  What  has  Oedipus  just  found  out  about  in  Scene  IV?    

                 2.  How  does  the  chorus  feel  about  this  discovery?    Quote  from  the  text  to  support  your  opinion.          

             3.  How  does  the  chorus  feel  about  Oedipus?    Quote  from  the  text  to  support  your  opinion.                        4.    How  has  the  opinion  of  the  chorus  about  Oedipus  changed  over  the  course  of  the  play?    Quote  from  the  text  to  support  your  observations.    

16

Directions: Answer all questions in full and complete sentences. You need to include a direct quotation in at least TWO of your responses per section.

Exodos:

1. How does Iocaste die?

2. What did Oedipus do following Iocaste’s death? What figurative language is used to describe

his actions?

3. How does Oedipus explain his decision to harm himself?

4. What is ironic about Creon’s rise to the throne?

5. What does Oedipus think will happen to his daughters?

6. What is Choragos’ final advice? What does it mean?

17

Elements of Literature: Tragedy and the Tragic Hero from World Literature: Revised Edition: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston

The  Greek  philosopher  Aristotle  

(384-­‐322  B.C.)  pays  special  attention  to  tragedy  in  his  treatise  The  Poetics.    He  explains  that  tragic  dramas  should  be  tightly  unified  constructions  based  on  a  single  action  and  featuring  a  single  protagonist,  or  hero.    Tragedies  generally  deal  with  characters  who  are  neither  exceptionally  virtuous  nor  exceptionally  evil.    According  to  Aristotle,  the  hero  should  have  “a  character  between  these  two  extremes—that  of  a  man  [or  a  woman]  who  is  not  preeminently  good  or  just,  yet  whose  misfortune  is  brought  about  not  by  vice  or  depravity,  but  by  some  error  in  judgment  or  frailty.”    This  weakness  is  known  as  hamartia,  which  is  often  translated  as  “tragic  flaw.”    Typically,  this  flaw  often  takes  the  form  of  excessive  pride  or  arrogance,  called  hubris.  

As  a  tragedy  unfolds,  according  to  Aristotle,  the  tragic  hero  goes  through  one  

or  more  reversals  of  fortune  leading  up  to  a  final  recognition  of  a  truth  that  has  remained  hidden  from  him.    In  the  process  he  experiences  a  profound  suffering.    Aristotle  supplements  his  theory  by  observing  that,  as  the  members  of  an  audience  witness  this  deep  suffering,  their  emotions  of  pity  and  fear  lead  them  to  experience  a  feeling  of  catharsis,  or  purgation,  that  leaves  them  with  a  new  sense  of  self-­‐awareness  and  renewal.    Paradoxically,  then,  the  experience  of  watching  a  tragedy  and  being  purged  of  upsetting  emotions  brings  a  kind  of  pleasure  to  the  spectator.  

In  his  analysis  of  tragedy  in  The  Poetics,  Aristotle  cites  Sophocles’  play  Oedipus  Rex  several  times  as  a  supreme  example  of  tragic  drama.    Were  you  moved  to  pity  and  fear  by  this  tale  of  Oedipus’s  suffering?    Did  you  also  feel  a  sense  of  renewal  through  the  experience?    

 1.    Did  “the  experience  of  watching  a  tragedy  and  being  purged  of  upsetting  emotions  [bring]  a  

kind  of  pleasure  to  the  spectator”—you?    Explain  why  or  why  not.                

2.    Think  about  some  of  the  “modern  tragic  heroes”  we  have  discussed.    How  did  you  feel  when  you  hear  news  of  their  downfalls?    Give  specific  examples  in  your  answer.  

 

18

A Critical Comment: Themes in Oedipus Rex

from World Literature: Revised Edition: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston

Many  readers  have  wondered  about  the  theme  or  message  that  Oedipus  intended  to  convey  in  Oedipus  Rex.    Some  critics  say  that  the  play  is  nothing  more  than  an  ingenious  detective  story,  in  which  the  detective  himself  turns  out  to  be  the  hated  culprit.    Others  assume  that  the  play  must  mask  hidden  references  to  Sophocles’  own  time,  so  that  Oedipus’s  pride  and  downfall  mirror  the  figure  of  the  proud  statesman  Pericles,  or  perhaps  the  fortunes  of  Athens  itself.    While  each  of  these  theories  may  represent  part  of  the  truth,  many  readers  have  recognized  that  the  implications  of  the  tragedy  go  far  beyond  its  structure  as  a  detective  story  or  its  relevance  to  real  life  in  the  playwright’s  own  time.  

One  of  the  main  questions  of  the  drama  has  to  do  with  the  degree  of  guilt  to  be  assigned  to  the  fallen  king.    In  one  view,  Oedipus  must  be  held  fully  responsible  for  his  actions.    Even  if  his  monumental  crimes  were  committed  unintentionally,  critics  say,  Oedipus  might  have  avoided  them  through  greater  vigilance.    Others  insist  that  the  very  process  of  discovery  shows  the  great  kings  tragic  flaw:  his  own  self-­‐confidence  and  pride  as  revealed  in  his  arrogant  treatment  of  Teiresias  and  Creon.    The  actual  Greek  title  of  the  play  is,  in  fact,  Oedipus  Tyrannos  (the  title  Oedipus  Rex  is  Latin  for  “Oedipus  the  King”).    The  term  tyrant  in  ancient  Greek  refers  more  to  a  powerful,  self-­‐made  ruler  than  to  an  evil  despot,  and  Oedipus,  as  portrayed  by  Sophocles,  does  not  seem  particularly  tyrannical.    Still,  the  flaw  of  pride  in  Oedipus  cannot  be  lightly  dismissed.  

One  the  other  hand,  we  also  see  from  numerous  touches  of  characterization  in  the  play  that  Oedipus  is  basically  a  sincere  ruler,  a  good  man,  and  a  loving  father.    We  are  therefore  forced  to  consider  even  larger  questions  of  divine  justice  and  the  individual’s  place  in  the  world.    Are  human  beings  creatures  of  free  will,  or  are  their  actions,  for  good  or  ill,  determined  by  forces  beyond  their  control?    In  interpreting  this  play,  it  is  difficult  to  say  exactly  where  Sophocles  stands  on  this  issue.    Certainly  we  can  hear  the  faith  and  reverence  for  the  gods  reflected  in  most  of  the  choral  odes.    On  the  other  hand,  Sophocles  also  carefully  removes  any  direct  divine  intervention  from  the  action  of  the  play  itself.    Moreover,  he  allows  Oedipus  and  Iocaste  to  serve  occasionally  as  spokespersons  for  the  religious  skepticism  that  was  in  the  air  in  Athens  during  the  later  fifth  century  B.C.    At  several  points  in  the  play,  Oedipus  defines  himself  as  a  “child  of  luck,”  also  suggesting  a  denial  of  the  power  of  the  gods.  

In  the  final  moments  of  the  drama,  this  issue  emerges  in  a  new  light.    Throughout  the  play,  the  idea  that  the  individual  is  a  completely  self-­‐sufficient  character  is  undermined  by  irony  and  doubt.    But  in  the  end,  it  is  Oedipus’s  self-­‐knowledge,  in  fulfillment  of  the  injunction  to  “know  thyself,”  that  gives  him  the  strength  to  face  the  truth  and  go  out  and  meet  his  fate.  

   

19

The New York Times, November 20, 2007 Denial Makes the World Go Round By BENEDICT CAREY For years she hid the credit card bills from her husband: The $2,500 embroidered coat from Neiman Marcus. The $900 beaded scarf from Blake in Chicago. A $600 pair of Dries van Noten boots. All beautiful items, and all perfectly affordable if she had been a hedge fund manager or a Google executive. Friends at first dropped hints to go easy or rechannel her creative instincts. Her mother grew concerned enough to ask pointed questions. But sales clerks kept calling with early tips on the coming season’s fashions, and the seasons kept changing. “It got so bad I would sit up suddenly at night and wonder if I was going to slip up and this whole thing would explode,” said the secretive shopper, Katharine Farrington, 46, a freelance film writer living in Washington, who is now free of debt. “I don’t know how I could have been in denial about it for so long. I guess I was optimistic I could pay, and that I wasn’t hurting anyone. “Well, of course that wasn’t true.” Everyone is in denial about something; just try denying it and watch friends make a list. For Freud, denial was a defense against external realities that threaten the ego, and many psychologists today would argue that it can be a protective defense in the face of unbearable news, like a cancer diagnosis. In the modern vernacular, to say someone is “in denial” is to deliver a savage combination punch: one shot to the belly for the cheating or drinking or bad behavior, and another slap to the head for the cowardly self-deception of pretending it’s not a problem. Yet recent studies from fields as diverse as psychology and anthropology suggest that the ability to look the other way, while potentially destructive, is also critically important to forming and nourishing close relationships. The psychological tricks that people use to ignore a festering problem in their own households are the same ones that they need to live with everyday human dishonesty and betrayal, their own and others’. And it is these highly evolved abilities, research suggests, that provide the foundation for that most disarming of all human invitations, forgiveness. In this emerging view, social scientists see denial on a broader spectrum — from benign inattention to passive acknowledgment to full-blown, willful blindness — on the part of couples, social groups and organizations, as well as individuals. Seeing denial in this way, some scientists argue, helps clarify when it is wise to manage a difficult person or personal situation, and when it threatens to become a kind of infectious silent trance that can make hypocrites of otherwise forthright people. “The closer you look, the more clearly you see that denial is part of the uneasy bargain we strike to be social creatures,” said Michael McCullough, a psychologist at the University of Miami and the author of the coming book “Beyond Revenge: The Evolution of the Forgiveness Instinct.” “We really do want to be moral people, but the fact is that we cut corners to get individual

20

advantage, and we rely on the room that denial gives us to get by, to wiggle out of speeding tickets, and to forgive others for doing the same.” The capacity for denial appears to have evolved in part to offset early humans’ hypersensitivity to violations of trust. In small kin groups, identifying liars and two-faced cheats was a matter of survival. A few bad rumors could mean a loss of status or even expulsion from the group, a death sentence. In a series of recent studies, a team of researchers led by Peter H. Kim of the University of Southern California and Donald L. Ferrin of the University of Buffalo, now at Singapore Management University, had groups of business students rate the trustworthiness of a job applicant after learning that the person had committed an infraction at a previous job. Participants watched a film of a job interview in which the applicant was confronted with the problem and either denied or apologized for it. If the infraction was described as a mistake and the applicant apologized, viewers gave him the benefit of the doubt and said they would trust him with job responsibilities. But if the infraction was described as fraud and the person apologized, viewers’ trust evaporated — and even having evidence that he had been cleared of misconduct did not entirely restore that trust. “We concluded there is this skewed incentive system,” Dr. Kim said. “If you are guilty of an integrity-based violation and you apologize, that hurts you more than if you are dishonest and deny it.” The system is skewed precisely because the people we rely on and value are imperfect, like everyone else, and not nearly as moral or trustworthy as they expect others to be. If evidence of this weren’t abundant enough in everyday life, it came through sharply in a recent study led by Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Ariely and two colleagues, Nina Mazar and On Amir, had 326 students take a multiple-choice general knowledge test, promising them payment for every correct answer. The students were instructed to transfer their answers, for the official tally, onto a form with color-in bubbles for each numbered question. But some of the students had the opportunity to cheat: they received bubble sheets with the correct answers seemingly inadvertently shaded in gray. Compared with the others, they changed about 20 percent of their answers, and a follow-up study demonstrated that they were unaware of the magnitude of their dishonesty. “What we concluded is that good people can be dishonest up to the level where conscience kicks in,” said Dr. Ariely, author of the book “Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions,” due out next year. “That essentially you can fool the conscience a little bit and make small transgressions without waking it up. It all goes under the radar because you are not paying that much attention.” It is a mistake to underestimate the power of simple attention. People can be acutely aware of what they pay attention to and remarkably blind to what they do not, psychologists have found. In real life, to be sure, casual denials of bad behavior require more than simple mental gymnastics, but inattention is a basic first ingredient.

21

The second ingredient, or second level, is passive acknowledgment, when infractions are too persistent to go unnoticed. People have adapted a multitude of ways to handle such problems indirectly. A raised eyebrow, a half smile or a nod can signal both “I saw that” and “I’ll let this one pass.” The acknowledgment is passive for good reasons: an open confrontation, with a loved one or oneself, risks a major rupture or life change that could be more dire than the offense. And more often than is assumed, a subtle gesture can be enough of a warning to trigger a change in behavior, even one’s own. In an effort to calculate exactly how often people overlook or punish infractions within their peer groups, a team of anthropologists from New Mexico and Vancouver ran a simulation of a game to measure levels of cooperation. In this one-on-one game, players decide whether to contribute to a shared investment pool, and they can cut off their partner if they believe that player’s contributions are too meager. The researchers found that once players had an established relationship of trust based on many interactions — once, in effect, the two joined the same clique — they were willing to overlook four or five selfish violations in a row without cutting a friend off. They cut strangers off after a single violation. Using a computer program, the anthropologists ran out the simulation over many generations, in effect speeding up the tape of evolution for this society of players. And the rate of overlooking trust violations held up; that is, this pattern of forgiving behavior defined stable groups that maximized the survival and evolutionary fitness of the individuals. “There are lots of way to think about this,” said the lead author, Daniel J. Hruschka of the Santa Fe Institute, a research group that focuses on complex systems. “One is that you’re moving and you really need help, but your friend doesn’t return your call. Well, maybe he’s out of town, and it’s not a defection at all. The ability to overlook or forgive is a way to overcome these vicissitudes of everyday life.” Nowhere do people use denial skills to greater effect than with a spouse or partner. In a series of studies, Sandra Murray of the University of Buffalo and John Holmes of the University of Waterloo in Ontario have shown that people often idealize their partners, overestimating their strengths and playing down their flaws. This typically involves a blend of denial and touch-up work — seeing jealousy as passion, for instance, or stubbornness as a strong sense of right and wrong. But the studies have found that partners who idealize each other in this way are more likely to stay together and to report being satisfied in the relationship than those who do not. “The evidence suggests that if you see the other person in this idealized way, and treat them accordingly, they begin to see themselves that way, too,” Dr. Murray said. “It draws out these more positive behaviors.” Faced with the high odor of real perfidy, people unwilling to risk a break skew their perception of reality much more purposefully. One common way to do this is to recast clear moral breaches as foul-ups, stumbles or lapses in competence — because those are more tolerable, said Dr. Kim, of U.S.C. In effect, Dr. Kim said, people “reframe the ethical violation as a competence violation.”

22

She wasn’t cheating on him — she strayed. He didn’t hide the losses in the subprime mortgage unit for years — he miscalculated. This active recasting of events, built on the same smaller-bore psychological tools of inattention and passive acknowledgment, is the point at which relationship repair can begin to shade into willful self-deception of the kind that takes on a life of its own. Everyone knows what this looks like: You can’t talk about the affair, and you can’t talk about not talking about it. Soon, you can’t talk about any subject that’s remotely related to it. And the unstated social expectations out in the world often reinforce the conspiracy, no matter its source, said Eviatar Zerubavel, a sociologist at Rutgers and the author of “The Elephant in the Room: Silence and Denial in Everyday Life.” “Tact, decorum, politeness, taboo — they all limit what can be said in social domains,” he said. “I have never seen tact and taboo discussed in the same context, but one is just a hard version of the other, and it’s not clear where people draw the line between their private concerns and these social limits.” In short, social mores often work to shrink the space in which a conspiracy of silence can be broken: not at work, not out here in public, not around the dinner table, not here. It takes an outside crisis to break the denial, and no one needs a psychological study to know how that ends. In Ms. Farrington’s case, the event was a move out of the country for her husband’s job. Unable to earn much money from her own work, she kept buying but had no way to cover the credit card payments. “Basically,” she said, “I had to fess up. It was terrible, but I fessed up to my husband, I fessed up to my mother and to another friend who was getting the bills while I was away. This whole web of intrigue, and in the end it just had to crash.” She now hunts for better bargains on eBay.

   

23

Motif Essay

It’s  time  to  synthesize  your  ideas  about  a  motif  of  your  choosing.    The  steps  (separate  deadlines  &  graphic  organizer)  below  are  designed  to  help  you  create  a  successful  and  argumentative  3-­‐4-­‐paragraph  essay.   The Questions/Question: How does the development of a motif contribute to meaning in a text? How does an author show human nature through this development? To complete our unit on Oedipus Rex and motifs, you will complete an essay that answers the question:

How does the development of a motif contribute to a theme in Oedipus Rex?

   

 Requirements:  Your  paper  should:    

• be  typed  in  Times  New  Roman  or  a  like  font  • be  double  spaced  • be  three  or  4  paragraphs  in  length  • have  standard  1-­‐1.25”  margins  • have  an  original  title  • Include  four  quotations,  all  on  one  motif.      •  Properly  embed  quotations  in  your  original  writing  •  Write  in  the  present  tense  (all  literature  happens  as  we  read  it)  • Write  in  the  third  person  (no  I,  we,  or  you)  

                                           

Due Dates

6-8 quotations on sticky notes: ____________________

Timeline graphic organizer: ______________________

Rough draft (for peer review): ____________________

Final draft (submitted on Turnitin): _______________