Comparative Analysis Of Oedipus Rex And Station Eleven It Terms Of The Idea Of A Hero
The idea of what makes an acceptable hero in literature today is vastly different to what it was in ancient times. Analyzing Oedipus Rex and Station Eleven displays an excellent example of how the idea of a hero has changed in writings over time. Sophocles and Emily St. John Mandel’s ideas differ when it comes to writing their ‘hero’ characters into Station Eleven and Oedipus Rex respectively. While Sophocles stays traditionally within the definition of what we now call a ‘tragic hero’ from Aristotle’s works, Mandel deviates greatly from Aristotle’s poetics while still creating a protagonist character with depth and intricacies. Oedipus, from Oedipus Rex, is undoubtedly the main character of the story and is considered to be a conventional tragic hero under Aristotle’s definition. In his Poetics, Aristotle lays out several key characteristics which provide the foundation of what a tragic hero is. Back in ancient times, most notably in the works of Greek philosophers and academics, writing in this type of hero is what would keep the character human and relatable in the eyes of the reader. Alternatively, In Station Eleven Mandel has an entirely different way of writing a hero into the story. The novel is not just following one character but transitions nearly every chapter between time and characters, from Kirsten in the ‘present’, to Arthur and Miranda in the past, as well as several other switches. The idea of writing a story with main characters such as this is in great contrast to how they were written a long time ago and looking more in depth at the novels can demonstrate this point further.
Focusing on Oedipus’s identity as a tragic hero in the story reveals several traits that were crucial to his development as the character Sophocles wanted to write about in Oedipus Rex. A character will usually contain three key components that determine their status as a tragic hero, those being hubris, catharsis, and hamartia. Oedipus displays all three in his journey. Hubris, defined as excessive pride as well as a boldness to go against the natural order of the world. Oedipus shows this by blatantly ignoring the warnings he received from Tiresias about pursuing the truth about his fate. Even when presented with the truth when Tiresias outright reveals to Oedipus that he himself is the murderer of his father, Oedipus’ pride won’t allow him to accept it and he instead arrogantly waves off the old man as a fraud and a liar. Catharsis is the feeling of pity that the reader is supposed to feel for the tragic hero in a tragedy. The reader feels this pity for Oedipus as the truth becomes more apparent and we know Oedipus is learning the truth, and this pity climaxes when he gouges his eyes after seeing his mother/wife has hung herself out of grief. The catharsis that the audience feels is a result of Oedipus’ own hubris, hubris being a fatal flaw that brings about the downfall of the tragic hero. His fatal flaw is that he was blind to the truth and could not see what was plain to see and as a result he met a fate that was undeserved and tragic, thus solidifying his status as one of the most traditionally tragically written heroes ever created.
Oedipus, on top of having the important traditional traits of a tragic hero that are related to morals, inherent character and story arc, also has some more minor traits that were often present in heroes and protagonists in literature at the time. The most obvious stereotypical trait of a hero in older stories is that they are for the majority all men, as is Oedipus in Oedipus Rex. In Ancient Greek times, the clear majority of stories and poems had a male hero, save for some stories in which the goddess Athena was the heroine. This was a common aspect of literature back then, where the hero was a powerful, masculine figure, using his strength and wisdom to overcome challenges. While Oedipus may not have saved the day through his great courage (quite the opposite, as his story ends in tragedy and suffering) he still fits the archetype of a man being the ‘hero’ of the story. In the beginning he stands tall and is a respected authority figure. The women in the story, however, are portrayed as the opposite. Jocasta, the wife/mother of Oedipus, does not in fact play any hero role, and her story ends with the readers viewing her as a somewhat weak if not unfortunate woman who met a gruesome and untimely fate. The difference between how men and women are portrayed when Oedipus Rex was written and when Station Eleven was written is colossal.
The ending of Oedipus Rex, however, is not dependent on the gender or portrayal of the character’s sex. At the end of the story is when Jocasta kills herself and Oedipus stabs his eyes out and consequently banishes himself from the kingdom to save the people from the plague and to deal with his own demons. The culmination of all the events in the story lead up to this ending. To a reader in the modern age, the conclusion of Oedipus Rex seems poetic and meaningful if not a little unsatisfying. The ending is not what a modern reader is used to, the end of the hero is not one of happiness. In a typical story nowadays, the hero would defeat the villain and justice would have been fulfilled. But this ending shows that Oedipus Rex is not a hero we are used to. He is a broken person, one who has been through tremendous pain. By the end of the story in the typical fashion of a tragedy the audience pities him and what he has become. This hero is not what we see today in popular culture, he is unconventional, but back in the time when Oedipus Rex was written this type of ending would have been seen as another ending to a tragedy. These differences between culture clearly shows the evolution of how heroes in writing have developed to be different over time.
Station Eleven is a very non-conventional book as far as storytelling goes. There are many jumps in time throughout the novel, all of which weave a confusing web through the story about how the past influenced the future and how the characters came together. These time jumps make the idea of choosing one character to represent the hero throughout the whole story almost impossible to do. The book opens with Jeevan Chaudhary, a paramedic, witnessing Arthur Leander’s collapse during a production of King Lear. He attempts to resuscitate the actor but ultimately fails and feels significant guilt in the beginning of the book due to that fact. Jeevan even describes how he became a paramedic because he wanted to make a difference in the world and save lives. These actions and motives are heroic, and yet he is not the hero of the book. Miranda Carroll, one of Arthur’s former wives, could even be the hero in the book. Miranda wrote the comic book series “Dr. Eleven” and as these books are part of the reason the villain Tyler Leander was defeated, she also could be a heroic character. Kirsten Raymonde is shown to be more or less the main character and protagonist of the novel, but Jeevan and Miranda’s heroics occurred before Kirsten was even old enough to have an impact on anything of significance in the story. It could be considered that there are multiple heroes in the story, unheard of back in Sophocles’ day.
These female characters, Miranda and Kirsten, being partially focused on in the novel as heroes is something that would not have been done in the time of Oedipus Rex. Since a woman would very rarely be cast as a hero in a story written back in the day, the character considered to be the protagonist and main hero of Station Eleven, Kirsten Raymonde, would have been an abnormality if written into a story back in ancient times. She is the most heroic character in the novel and can even be viewed as participating in an archetypal hero’s journey, going to travel to the Museum of Civilization to find her friends Charlie and Jeremy who were lost after they were left by The Symphony in St. Deborah. Kirsten as a hero has many traits which Oedipus and other ancient heroes from epics and myths do not have that set her apart from being a traditional hero and shows how she is a more developed modern character. She is deeply scarred by her past, as shown in the novel. When she is asked a question about her tattoos by a character documenting the world after the Georgia Flu, Kirsten says, “I won’t talk about it…you know better than to ask…”. Her tattoos represent great loss and suffering, to the point that she is not even willing to mention the meaning behind them in passing conversation. Kirsten is also a very innocent character, having been just a child when society collapsed in Station Eleven. She is ignorant of many things about the old world, from electricity to the internet. Her innocence is an added aspect of her character that Oedipus, tragic hero as he is, does not share. The characteristics of Kirsten give her depth and complexity, and Station Eleven along with countless other modern novels show that female characters work equally well as interesting and exceptional heroes as the male heroes of the ancient works do.
Kirsten as a character and how she is involved in the climax and finale of Station Eleven is a terrific example of how a hero is looked at in literature these days. She steps in to intervene when the need is dire at the climax, and as a result, the villain Tyler Leander is murdered, and Kirsten is responsible for saving the day. The Symphony finds a town with functioning electricity to settle down and rest in, and all their conflicts have been resolved neatly by the end of the book. Despite some losses along the way, the characters can go back to living their normal lives, surviving in the post-apocalyptic world of Station Eleven.
The thing that makes literature so interesting is that it is variable, it changes, and this change is more present than ever when comparing the heroes of Oedipus Rex and Station Eleven. We have Oedipus, a proud, strong, wise man. In the end he loses everything, and the story ends with the hero in shambles as the villain, fate, has a hold on his destiny. Alternatively, we have Kirsten, a young girl who uses her wits to survive in a post-apocalyptic world, and in the end her intelligence saves the people she cares about and helps to defeat the villain. These heroes are two very different characters written by very different people in different times of history. Oedipus would likely not be written as a character in a novel today, his characteristics come from a past age with alternative literature. As time moves on so does the development of heroes in stories, and Kirsten from Station Eleven serves as an example of this with her complicated story that weaves itself together so well, coming to a satisfying conclusion.
