But at least that long term gives us a chance to make our own meaning. Things don't happen for a reason, but simply because they're fated we create our own prison yeah yeah. And for me at least it does suffer the littlest bit for it. Instead we get the story of a single (really bad) day, in classic(al) Thespian style. We don't see the expected sweep of a tragic life: no Sphinx, no killing at the crossroads, except in flashback we don't see Oedipus living as a broken man, and feel the catharsis of watching time restore him some human dignity (I understand some of that comes in the sequels).

Even the basics of this story are, pardon the expression, mother's milk-if you know one thing about The Broters Karamazov it's Jesus and the Inquisitor, or maybe that a SON MURDERS his mean old dad and if you know one thing about Hamlet it's to be or not to be or maybe that there's something a bit OEDIPAL between the prince and his ma but if you know one thing about Oedipus, it's the same thing everyone else in the world knows: he killed his father and married his mother, and even 2400 years later he's not lived it down.And granted, there are surprises actually coming to the play-Sophocles observes the thee unities (in fact he was Aristotle's major model for what constitutes quality drama, including those stupid unities), and so this isn't done in the way a modern would do it, as a twisted Bildungsroman, a coming to filthy self-knowledge. In these end times, it's rare to come to any great work fresh, but it's hard to imagine much that's as predetermined as Oedipus-forget Freud, forget Turin Turambar, forget that the Sphinx has been missing her nose so long none of us even remembers what she looked like when she asked Oedi that riddle that we've all known the answer to as long as we knew that riddles had answers.

Oedipus the king by sophocles