Oedipus’ Family Tree: What You Need to Know
The family relations in Sophocles’ Three Theban Plays (Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone) are a key part of the famous tragedies. These familial relations are the key factors in understanding the plays themselves. Oedipus’s family tree is anything but straightforward, with characters often being related in two different ways at once. It is common knowledge that Oedipus married his mother, Jocasta, but it is important to understand this incestuous marriage’s ramifications that curses the family for three generations.
Oedipus is the son of Laius and Jocasta. He marries his own mother, and she gives birth to two sons (Polynices and Eteocles) and two daughters (Ismene and Antigone). Being the offspring of mother and son, these four children are both the children and grandchildren of Jocasta and the children and siblings of Oedipus at once.
Another family dynamic worth highlighting is Jocasta’s brother, Creon, who has a son with his wife Eurydice named Haemon. Haemon is both first and second cousin to Oedipus and Jocasta’s four children, while also being Oedipus’s first cousin and nephew at once. Creon is both an uncle and a brother-in-law to Oedipus.
Oedipus Rex and the Prophecy: The patricide/incest of Oedipus
It is important to know how Oedipus and Jocasta came together initially since this relationship is always at the core of the Theban Plays. Even when the couple is long gone, the effects of their cursed relationship is felt by their children over the course of the three plays. Before the story in Oedipus Rex (which is sometimes translated as Oedipus Tyrannus, Oedipus the King or Oedipus the King of The Thebes), there is a prophecy that Oedipus will kill his father, the king Laius of Thebes, and marry his mother, Jocasta. To prevent the prophecy from being fulfilled, they plan to murder their son, but he escapes with the servants’ help and gets adopted by a couple unaware of his identity.
Upon discovering this prophecy, Oedipus flees home, not wanting to harm his parents, not knowing they actually adopted him. In his escape, Oedipus comes across a man with his servants and fights him, resulting in Oedipus unknowingly killing his own father, who also does not recognize him as his son. The killing of Laius by Oedipus fulfills the first part of the prophecy. Upon solving the riddle of the Sphinx, who was terrorizing Thebes, Oedipus is rewarded with the title of king for facing the Sphinx and, with that, marries Jocasta. Eventually, both realize that Jocasta is Oedipus’ true mother and that the prophecy – kill the father, marry the mother – has been completed.
This terrible truth was discovered after Thebes faced a terrible plague. Oedipus, then the king of Thebes, sends his uncle/brother-in-law Creon to seek guidance from the oracle, who argues that the plague is the product of a religious curse because the murder of the former King Laius was never brought to justice. Oedipus consults with the blind prophet Tiresias, who accuses him of having a hand in the murder of Laius.
As more details from the day King Laius was murdered come to the surface, Oedipus and Jocasta begin to put the pieces together and finally conclude that their union is built on patricide and incest and that the prophecy was true.
Upon discovering the truth, Jocasta commits suicide by hanging and, disgusted with his actions, Oedipus blinds himself and begs to be exiled, asking his brother-in-law/uncle Creon to care for his children, saying how sorry he is to bring them to the world into such a cursed family.
His two sons and brothers, Eteocles and Polynices, try to refuse their father/brother in his wish to exile himself and, because of that, Oedipus lays a curse on both of them that they will kill themselves in battle.
Oedipus at Colonus and the curse: Death of The Family
Oedipus goes on the road with his daughter/sister Antigone’s company, wandering around for years. Because his story of incest and patricide horrified and disgusted everyone he came across, Oedipus was expelled from every city he visited. The only city that would take him was Colonus, a part of the Athenian territory. His two sons stay to rule Thebes together, with the plan of each brother spending alternating years on the throne.
At the end of the first year, Eteocles refuses to give up the throne and banishes his brother, accusing him of being evil. Polynices goes to the city of Argo, where he marries the daughter of the king and assembles an army to help him get back the throne of Thebes. During the battle, Oedipus’s sons/brothers duel and mortally wound each other, leaving Creon to go back to the throne as king of Thebes. His curse on his sons is fulfilled, Oedipus then dies peacefully.
Oedipus’ family tree is, at the end of Oedipus at Colonus, decimated. Jocasta is the first one to go, having committed suicide at the end of Oedipus Rex. Oedipus and his two sons/brothers die at the end of Oedipus at Colonus. In the final Theban Play, Antigone, of Oedipus’ family tree, only his two daughters/sisters in Antigone and Ismene remain, along with Haemon (his cousin/nephew) and his uncle and brother-in-law Creon, who now serves as king.
Antigone and death: The remains of Oedipus and Thebes
Antigone deals primarily with the desire of Antigone to give her brother Polynices a proper and respectful burial after being killed in battle. At the same time, Creon wants to give him to the dogs since he perceives Polynices as a traitor. Another layer to the family tree is that Haemon is promised to marry Antigone, his cousin.
At the end of the play, Antigone commits suicide after being imprisoned by Creon for attempting to give a proper burial for Polynices. A distressed Haemon, upon finding her body, stabs himself to death. Eurydice also commits suicide after finding out about her son, slashing her own throat. Therefore, at the end of the Theban plays, Oedipus survives only by his daughter/sister Ismene and Creon, his brother-in-law/uncle, who is left alone in the chaotic Thebes.
