Ian Thorne
CLAS 1100
Short Paper
Oedipus Myth Variant
A baby named Oedipus was soon to be born to a prominent couple in the Mediterranean. The husband and wife were the trusted owners of a very successful investment management business. The father of Oedipus, Laius, came from nothing and worked his whole life to accomplish what he has done. Laius wants his son to want for nothing so he will provide him everything. In doing so Laius never taught Oedipus any lessons. Oedipus grew up asking for more and getting exactly what he wanted. He was a charming young man and just assumed that his qualities he exerted on the outside would get him to where his father was. Oedipus always took from his father and this led to a disconnection in the relationship he had with his mother. They grew distant during his childhood. Once he moved out of his house he went through a string of relationships with women who were similar to his own mother. Oedipus never received true love from his mother so he spent most of his adult life looking for it, which has not been working out for him. Continuing on his current journey, the day for Oedipus to take reigns of his father’s company finally came. The people loved him, while he lived off of his father’s reputation. One day he went to another city for a potential investment. Getting in over his head, he speculated on the investment that looked like a sure bet. Oedipus threw all the money his father gave him into the potential investment. Within a week, more than half of the investors’ money had vanished. When confronted by the investors, Oedipus turned to his father for money to pay them back. Laius was all out of money because he had given it all to Oedipus, his reputation was killed and the shame caused his mother to kill herself.
I chose to create a different variant of the Oedipus myth. The reason I chose this myth is because it stands out to me how horrible the actions within it, yet the message is very relevant to many people. I wanted to create a modern viewpoint of the Oedipus myth. Many kids today are just given handouts, regardless of wealth, this causes them to never have to work through any struggles to figure out their true identity. This was the problem with Oedipus. He unknowingly caused harm against his family because he was not sure who he really was as a person. A lack of self-identity can make people act extremely reckless. In today’s society I think this message is very important, and shows that people also had to deal with this issue of identity crisis thousands of years ago as well. My version of Oedipus represents how powerless an individual can feel to their path of destiny. In this scenario, the modern Oedipus just thought he had to grow up to be like his father, which is not what he truly saw himself doing. He continued on his path, not learning and not living with obstacles until he finally reached one and destroyed his family.
