Why Siddhartha?

In know that most of us today have a hard time with stories without much action.  Aristotle thought "spectacle," what we call special effects today, ruined stories, but in modern times, people find complex stories to be too mentally taxing, so they enjoy car chases and fight scenes more.  Correct me if I am wrong.

Anyhow, Siddhartha is just such a complex story.  It is about a young man who has followed the rules for a long time.  While doing so has gained him success in his community - he is respected for both his skills and his attitude by his neighbors - he still feels empty.  It turns out that what everyone around him said was "good" or indicative of success left him feeling empty.  Consider that he was on his way to a position of prominence as a Brahmin, which is the highest class of people in traditional Hindu society.  So, he was not only in the highest class of people, but he was considered to be amongst the most respected of Brahmins in his city.  Why wasn't this enough for him?  Shouldn't he have been happy?

Here is a question for you: Should happiness be sought?  Should we wake up every day trying to be happy, or is it better to try to live well and let happiness come to us as a result?  I have come to believe that happiness should not be our main goal.  Excellence should be our main goal, and happiness often comes to us as a result of our pursuit of excellence.  Siddhartha was one of many sources that taught me this lesson.

Human beings, much like all animals, are largely reliant upon instincts and upon habits.  Because of our minds, we have a greater range of habits than other animals.  Our range of habits go all the way from the destructive (drug and alcohol addictions) to the wasteful (aimlessly watching television or eating too much junk food) to the productive (taking notes, studying, exercising) and finally to the exemplary (yes, excellence can become a habit).

We often become who we are because of what we consistently do.

One can see the impacts of living excellently by looking at the people around them.  True, some variables are out of our control: how much money our parents have, whether or not we contract a communicable virus, the attitudes of people around us, what we are taught as children, the weather, etc.  People who live excellently, however, often reveal this to us in many ways.  We see that they have equanimity; they look healthy; they are energetic; they are curious and brave enough to seek answers to their questions; they are kind or at least avoid hurting others.  In short, they exude the effects of living excellently or at least striving to do so.

Conversely, we can see the impacts of living with counterproductive habits: Ennui, constant fatigue (not including that which is caused by illnesses) bitterness, anger, cynicism, and general apathy.  Now, if you talk to people who have the symptoms I just mentioned, they often have many excuses for why they are not responsible for these characteristics.  It is true that it is unfair to blame some of them for their situations, especially if they are young and have not had the time to unlearn the habits taught to them by the adult world.  Many times, however, their negative emotions are the results of practicing unproductive habits.

Siddhartha, the protagonist in the novel, feels many of these negative effects in the novel, but what makes him heroic is that he does not just stay with a life that is not working for him and accept his negative reactions.  Instead, he continually seeks living excellently, and eventually happiness finds him as a result.  

While you read the novel, ask yourself "What ways am I living excellently, and how are the impacts of these lifestyle choices obvious to the rest of the world?"  At the same time, consider the habits that you have that you know might be working against your happiness, and then ask, "Will I be strong enough to change these habits and seek excellence in myself?"

Look at your eating habits, what you do with your "free" time, how you tend to treat people without really thinking about it, etc.  Additionally, consider your self-talk, the ideas that you say to yourself in your head.  When you are unsuccessful at something, do you think Man, why am I so stupid? or do you  think, That's okay, I'll just seek other ways, because I will be successful!  Yes, our inner thoughts are products of habits as well.  

If these areas of your life are not producing the effects that you want, do you think you can be heroic enough to seek and practice excellence instead?  Siddhartha was.

Failing to Aim

The Greek word, hamartia, is often shown to be etymologically (study of word origins) as being related to archery.  It means, "to miss the mark."  In literature, hamartia refers to a person's central character flaw or a mistake he made, perhaps even though he was acting with the best of intentions.  Therefore, to miss the mark means to fall short of being your very best, especially when one falls tragically short of the mark.

For Oedipus, especially as portrayed in Sophocles' play, Oedipus Rex, the problem with his character was also one of his greatest traits: He had great personal pride.  It was his pride that allowed him to overcome all of his challenges in life.  If he had not been prideful and confident, he might not have taken on the Sphinx and answered her riddle.  He also likely would not have taken on the problem of the plague in Thebes.

Unfortunately for Oedipus, though, he had a certain kind of pride called "hubris."  Hubris takes one into arrogance and short-sightedness (figuratively, but in Oedipus' case - at least eventually - it was literal).  Arrogance causes rash behavior.  One famous way of putting this is that "Discretion is the better part of valor."  Do not not bull your way forward without thinking and call it bravery.  Sometimes it is just stubbornness.

Oedipus paid the price for his bull-headedness, but he was still heroic.  Why?  Because at least he aimed.

Many people miss the mark because they never really identify targets at all.  They simply wander into life hoping they will find meaning or meaning will find them.  People without goals are like archers without targets, just randomly firing out into space, perhaps finding targets of value, perhaps not.  If one does not identify his central mission in life, determine what goals he hopes to achieve, contemplate what he values and what virtues are most likely to bring him to his dreams, the likelihood of hitting the target becomes small.

"Failing to prepare is preparing to fail."

Why Oedipus, part 2 - Themes

What can the post-modern world learn from a long-dead playwright and his tragic hero?  Well, themes are generated by the human mind, not just by experts either.  Readers and audiences of the play can take away many poignant (powerful, important) ideas.  Here are a few that I have generated and reflected upon.

First off, there are the children of Oedipus, which are not themes until you think about what they represent.  The children - Antigone, Ismene, Polyneices, and Eteocles - are pariahs (despised outcasts) through no fault of their own.  They were the offspring of Jocasta and Oedipus, who are mother and son.  Disgusting, right?  And people might frown upon teaching such a play to high schoolers, but you have to look past the symbol to realize an important idea.

Oedipus had no idea that the woman he ended up marrying was his mother.  He simply accepted the offer to become king after the Theban people granted it to him for saving them from the terrifying Sphinx.   Jocasta had no idea that this man was her child since she assumed that her son had died long ago.  Therefore, unknowingly, unconsciously, they created a terrible brood of children, who became abhorred by all.

So, what is the theme?  It is actually quite a common and famous theme: The sins of the parents are visited upon their children.  What we do today will impact our children, their children and beyond.  Famously, the Iroquois Nation, a Native American culture, used to make sure that all of their councils made decisions for their people only after considering how those decisions would impact the seventh generation.  Modern westerners, in general, do not think that far ahead.  The result?  Well, one or two generations after Einstein's revelations became new science and new technology, we had to worry about what to do with nuclear waste and how to prepare for possible nuclear holocaust.  Now, Einstein and many of his fellow scientists were not trying to bring about our extinction, just as Oedipus had not intended to have children who were also his brothers and sisters.  When we go forward blindly without considering how our current actions will impact our children, they will often have to pay the price for our blindness.  American slavery is another important example.  It was a four hundred year tradition that ended violently with the Civil War (no, that was not truly the end, but it was a major step).  Initially, slavery was used because of economic reasons (which of course does not validate that decision).  However, after a few hundred years, it was simply a system that was passed down, generation to generation.  It only stopped when a few brave generations stepped forward and said, "No more!"  Below is the slide we used in class:

A second important theme regards the balance between pride and humility.  Oedipus shared a fatal flaw, a hamartia, with his father Laius - hubris.  In fact, their pride had much to do with the tragedies that befell Thebes.  When they met at the triple crossroads, neither would move off the path to let the other get by.  This led to Oedipus killing his own father and validating the first part of the Oracle's prophecies.  In Judeo-Christian theology, pride (synonymous with hubris) is considered so problematic that it is called one of the Seven Deadly Sins.  In fact, it was hubris that led Lucifer, God's most powerful angel, to challenge God's power.  It was also hubris that led Adam and Eve to disobey God and eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  In our own lives, how many of our conflicts are started for no other reason than because the parties involved are too prideful to concede, to give in?  Often, politics become less about what is best for a country and degenerate into two parties deciding they do not want to give in because compromise feels like losing, therefore hurting pride.  Hubris can cause us to lose sight of what is good because ego gets in the way.  Oedipus showed this when he started to chastise the great seer, Tiresias. Though Oedipus knew Tiresias was old, wise and had long been trusted, when Tiresias spoke the truth, Oedipus' hubris caused him to declare the blind prophet a traitor.  One way this famous theme is frequently stated is that "Pride comes before the fall," which means that hubris has a way of destroying a person, a society, and perhaps even a species, if they are not careful.  Below is the slide we used in class:

Lastly, the fact that Oedipus is considered to be a hero throws some people, because he killed his father and made babies with his mother.  Yes, his pride led him to killing his father, and his blindness led him  to marrying his mother, but when the chips were down, he followed through on his promise to rid Thebes of the terrible plague that befell it.  At the beginning of the play, he promised his people that he would do everything in his power to end the plague, and he wavered when Tiresias said he was the cause, but in the end, Oedipus kept going, even after he knew it meant disaster for him and for his family.  People warned him to stop as he went forward, but as a man of action, he knew that the truth, however horrible, must come out.  In the end, it did, and the consequences were dire for the Oedipus clan, but the plague was lifted, Thebes was healed and the curse of the House of Cadmus was ended by the parent who did not want the curse to go to further generations.  In Sophocles' play Oedipus at Colonus, the blind and disgraced Oedipus was finally given on honorable burial because he had admitted his sins and atoned for them.    One definition of honor is to do the right thing for no other reason than because it is the right thing to do, not for personal gain or notoriety.  Thus, Oedipus became such an honorable hero.  Though he had little to gain personally, he did the right thing.  The theme then?  The world depends upon "go-to" people, those who will act honorably for the sake of all.  Consider that Martin Luther King, Jr. was told by his friends to stop going forward with his message of civil rights for all.  Though it would have been in his interest to do so, he kept going and died for the cause.  If he had not, where might we be today?  Below is the slide we used in class:

As I said earlier, themes are generated by readers and audiences, not just by experts, but these are three themes I hope you will remember from Oedipus Rex.

Why Oedipus Rex?

Why Oedipus Rex?  There are numerous great reasons for looking at Sophocles' masterpiece.  Though some people wonder why a play full of incest and murder can be considered a famous work, a centerpiece of the canon, there are diverse elements of the play that make it remarkable.

First, the play has had a tremendous influence on how literature has evolved over nearly three millennia in the West.  Aristotle, likely the most famous and influential philosopher ever - and certainly one of them - used Oedipus Rex as a model for what an excellent play should be.  What did he like about it?  He liked that it maintained the Unities of Time, Action, and Place - the action happened in one day, was centered around only one plot, and occurred in one place, the palace steps in Thebes.  He also like that Oedipus figured out and resolved his own conflict, rather than waiting for a greater power to come to save him.  Aristotle called such an ending - when a god saves the day - a deus ex machina, god in the machine.  This meant that some of the plays of Aristotle's time ended with a god or goddess coming in to save the characters.  For example, Athena would be lowered onto the stage by a crane, or Hades would appear from below the stage through a trap door.  Today, movies or books that end with the cliché "Oh, it was only a dream" ending are technically deus ex machina endings.  Rather than solving their own dilemmas, the characters are saved by the dream scenario.  The Wizard of Oz film also resolves in a deus ex machina when Dorothy is saved by the Good Witch of the North.

What else did Aristotle like?  The play was a perfect example of tragedy.  The word "tragedy" comes from the ancient roots for "goat-song," which is emblematic of a time when sacrifices were performed to satisfy the gods.  What makes a good tragedy by Aristotle's definition?  A powerful human, usually of a high rank, experiences a series of events that eventually bring him to epiphanies - realizations about himself - and reversals of fortune that lead to his downfall.  To Aristotle, a comedy is the exact opposite of this - a low or poor man experiences a series of events that bring him to epiphanies and reversals of fortune, which in turn lead him to higher power or increased rank.  Since Oedipus went from being a trusted, respected and powerful king to a blind pauper who could only wander about the land with the assistance of his equally disgraced daughter, Antigone, he is the epitome (perfect example) of a tragic hero.

On top of that, Oedipus had what Aristotle called a hamartia - a tragic or fatal flaw.  Hamartia is word that refers to an archery phrase.  It means, loosely translated, "to miss the mark," referring to the area of one's life in which that person misses the target. In what area did Oedipus "miss the mark"?  Oedipus had many excellent qualities, but his downfall was his hubris.  He had so much pride that he refused to listen to anyone, even the wise Tiresias.  Unfortunately for him and for his father, Laius, this was a family trait.  That is why, when the two men met at the triple crossroads, something had to give.  Neither man would move so one of them had to die.  Thus, Oedipus the stubborn fulfilled the first part of the terrible prophecy and struck down his own father at the triple crossroads.  Aristotle said, that the true beauty of such a play, whether it is a comedy or a tragedy is when it evokes a catharsis from its audience, a powerful emotional release.  Consider why the motion picture industry is a multi-billion dollar enterprise - we go to movies so we can laugh, cry, be frightened or intrigued.  In fact, we pay as much as ten dollars or more for the privilege. (One might ask why our own lives do not provide that same level of catharsis).

One more belief held by Aristotle that few modern movie goers share is the idea that plays should not include an overwhelming dose of spectacle, which today is called special effects.  Sophocles made sure that all of the most terrible events of the play - Jocasta hanging herself, Oedipus poking out his own eyes - occurred off stage.  Aristotle believed that special effects took attention off the plot, and in fact, special effects, today, are often used to cover up a terrible story-line, so in a way, I can see what Aristotle was getting at.

So, why is this information important?  Sophocles' play, propelled in part by Aristotle's review of it, impacted the way plays were written for thousands of years, and indeed, it impacts to this day how films and even novels are written.  It took people like Chaucer, Marlowe and Shakespeare to start challenging these notions two millennia after Aristotle and Sophocles perished.