Contamination -- Mimetic Theory and Literary Study

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Date Posted: 17:50:53 03/06/08 Thu
Author: Shannon
Subject: Contamination

The idea of spreading contamination is very obviously presented in Oedipus Rex. Of course, there is the idea crucial to the plot that Oedipus is the "pollution of the country". But, once this has be revealed, Sophocles reveals the primative idea of contagion spreading through contact, as Girard relates in the idea of the rope and tree used in hanging. At first Oedipus only bemoans his own life, only refrencing his children in relation to his own misery. Then he deligates the care of his daughters to Creon: "Take care of them, Creon; do this for me./ And will you let me touch them with my hands/ A last time and let us weep together?" In touching his daughters, Oedipus symbolicly passes his contamination on to them. This toughing is repeated when he actually greets his daughters, and then begins to describe the misery which awaits them as tainted children:
"I weep for you when I think of the bitterness
That men will visit upon you all your lives.
What homes, what festivals can you attend
Without being forced to depart again in tears?
And when you come of marryiable age,
Where is the man, my daughters, who would dare
Risk the bane that lies on all my children?"

What I find as curious is Oedipus' continued request that Creon would care for them. Perhaps it is just his pleading in his dispair...is it possible that he considers Creon willing to house them because he is within their family, and thus already tainted by the contamination?

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