willingness to accept his role as a victim. If we find this victimhood and the fatedness that caused it an embarrassment rather than something powerful and dramatic, we may be tempted to picture Oedipus as still a masterful figure both in blinding himself and in his dealings with Kreon. But neither Oedipus' words nor the effect of his requests will bear any ''heroically defiant" interpretation. He remains subordinate to his fate and to Kreon. If the stage production wishes to honor the text, it must show Oedipus in these final moments as a powerless victim.
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Sophocles did write a play that dramatizes the rebirth of Oedipus' power, but
Oedipus at Colonus
depicts events far in the future, foreseen in our play only in these lines:
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 | | OEDIPUS
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| | | And yet, I know this now:
no sickness can kill me, nothing can.
I was saved from that death
to face an evil awesome and unknown.
Let my fate take me now, where it will.
(145557/166973)
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They are lines that end by insisting on Oedipus' present loss of freedom.
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If we deny that Oedipus is a victim, what becomes of the play's network of double meanings? They will become theatrical devices only, because Oedipus will be perceived as the one who survives, not the man whose suffering cannot be subdued or transformed to some more exhilarating thing. But when we accept his fatedness as true and central, these double meanings will convey Sophocles' daimonic vision of human life. They will carry the violent and sexual nature of Oedipus' fatedness, for most of these charged phrases force us back to the biological acts of his pollution. When Jocasta describes Laius' physical appearance to Oedipus, her words suggest both the origin of Oedipus' resemblance to the dead king and Jocasta's attraction to him:
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| | He looked then not very different from you now. (742/871)
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Oedipus' victimhood, however, is a remarkable kind, one that posed Sophocles a considerable problem. The only victimization that can be visually shown Sophocles shows us: the bloody result of blinding himself. To show his much greater victimizationthe god-caused incest and patricide, Oedipus must remain before our eyes long enough for the shock of the blood and hollow sockets to wear off. So Oedipus must remain before us and dwell long on what his life means if we are to see beyond his blinding into his greater victimhood. Twice he rebukes the Chorus for not understanding why blinding himself, not suicide, was essential to express his anguish.
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