Metamorphosis

Muhammad Furqan Tanvir

The Modernization of the Oedipus Myth: Contrasting

Cocteau’s The Infernal Machine with

Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex

Muhammad Furqan Tanvir

ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to explore, by contrasting Sophocles‟ Oedipus

Rex and Jean Cocteau‟s The Infernal Machine, how mythological stories

and characters are in their essence archetypes that are exploited by

authors in different ages to project different visions of the human

situation. Every writer imbibes the influence of his age to a certain

degree and if the art of Sophocles is set against that of Cocteau, the

dichotomy of moral and philosophical outlook thus established cannot go

unnoticed. Written in the twentieth century, Cocteau‟s play is in major

ways different from the Greek version written more tha n two thousand

years ago in spite of the fact that the plot outline of both remains the

same. The contrast will be highlighted in both thematic and structural

terms: the former in conceptual differences of heroism, providence,

man‟s consciousness and destiny, and the latter in the different

manipulation of theatrical devices like the chorus and physically evident

poetic symbolism. Through recourse to comments made by some literary

authors and critics on the characteristic features of the literature of the

modern age, it would be shown how The Infernal Machine is to be

categorized within it both historically and philosophically.

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The Modernization of the Oedipus Myth: Contrasting Cocteau’s The Infernal Machine

with Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex

This paper explores, by contrasting Sophocles‟ Oedipus Rex with Jean

Cocteau‟s The Infernal Machine, how a dramatist‟s individual mind is

conditioned by religious and socio -cultural values on the one hand and

by the opportunities offered to him and the restrictions imposed on him

by contemporary theatrical conventions on the other, thereby bringing

out the differences in the vision of the two dramatists‟ handling of...