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Oedipus Rex and the Matrix There is an abyss of millenniums between the story of Oedipus Rex which took place in Ancient Greece and the Matrix which should never take place in reality unless the humanity stops respecting itself. The story of Oedipus Rex narrated by the ancient Greek dramatist Sophocles and the threatening warning the Matrix though being divided by millenniums show that the problems which concern the mankind in general terms remain the same. This is an optimistic indication showing that the human nature has not been affected by the achievements of the science and technology. Both masterpieces show that the humanistic nature of a man has not changed. Both masterpieces are appeals to people not to dissolve their moral values in the collisions of the historical development.
They are both appealing to people not to loose their dignity and freedom. The most important question arising while watching the Matrix by Wachowski brothers is if the Matrix is possible in reality. It is very difficult to say, but the warning is impressive. The Matrix shows what consequence the achievement of a mankind may bring if it gets out of control. The Matrix indicates that the technical progress may lead to a fatal paradox when the creators will have to combat the community of machines they created. The Matrix is the warning movie on the future but we may observe certain indications of the Matrix which we have already succeeded to create.
The Internet is capturing our consciousness and becomes some kind of the Matrix to hide in from the everyday problems. The ugly community of the future ruled by the inhuman new order with its agents, inhuman laws and totalitarianism has already occurred in our recent history. The Nazi Germany attempted to establish the new order similar to that in the Matrix with the God chosen elite, faceless mass of the rest of the people and the concentration camps to manage the population of the paradise for the God chosen Aryans. The totalitarian communist regimes attempted to create the global communist Matrix with the same tiny faceless parts of the huge ideological machine which were called population and who were supposed to create the paradise by means of the global proletarian revolution.
Communism, Nazism, extreme nationalism and other inhuman philosophies were aimed to create their own Matrix in which people would obey the laws of the Matrix. The most dangerous threat which may bring such philosophies outlined in the movie is that the Matrix is managed by itself. The Matrix has been created by the people, got out of their control and develops according to its own laws. It is self sufficient system. The Matrix and its half human, half machine agents are invented by people.
They are only the staff serving the Matrix. There are no any leaders or rulers heading the Matrix. It is a phenomenon, a disaster. It has been created by the collective knowledge of the mankind. There are no any cultural values within the Matrix. The authors confirm the truth once more, the society neglecting the cultural and spiritual values can not be human.
The Matrix is not just a science fiction but a philosophical warning. The battle between the Matrix and the brave people headed by Morpheus is the battle to revive the spiritual values of the mankind. The Matrix is not the film of the future society but this is an appeal to the contemporaries to appreciate and preserve the human values. The movie sounds like the threatening prophecy. The action takes place in two parallel realities. Two types of existence of the heroes are intervened.
Moreover, the heroes are fighting virtually while they exist physically. They get their wounds virtually but these wounds affect their physical state through their spiritual perception of the virtual reality, or it is better to say the unreality. The movie is about the searches of the human being, how we distinguish real from unreal, how we define who we are and what our place in the universe is. The Matrix is illusion, a by-product of the artificial intellect, but this by-product got out of control and becomes dominating. Neo is the only one capable of inflicting damage on the AI (artificial intellect) system and free the people who have their minds enslaved, but for this to be accomplished he must break free the boundaries within his mind 1. It is the Neos mission to destroy the Matrix and to liberate the people.
Neo is coming to the world of the Matrix as Messiah. Neo does not have a choice and he takes his mission as it is. He is not the strongest or the most experienced among the rebels headed by Morpheus but his mission is presented as his destiny to liberate the people. The success of the Matrix is defined by its philosophic content. In case with Neo one may observe the free will vs fate debate 2.
The motives of Karma are clearly observed in the Matrix. The Matrix is a hyper reality created by the human intellect. The Matrix as a movie is a prophecy itself. As soon as we are able to create the Matrix in the form of movie we are able to create the Matrix in reality. Our cities are far from conventional natural dwellings. People are able to create the new worlds and we are only in the Nature who can do this.
We are creating the new environments. The most obvious and newer environment today is the Internet: its services such as the World Wide Web, email, and chat systems, all provide environments in which we can interact. The fact that they are electronic does not make the people any less real, and there's nothing wrong with artificial environments merely because they " re artificially created 3. The problem of the Matrix is not in its virtual or artificial nature but in the moral nature of its creators, i. e.
people. Our entire world has been artificially created by the people. We have been creating it according to our vision. People forget about the natural law dominance. They develop the sovereigns (governments according to Hobbes) who violate the natural law sending them to risk their lives because prior to that they initiate the wars. People develop The Matrix which becomes the prison thus contradicting the natural law.
Worst of all this prison is created by the people themselves. People do not have their ultimate freedom in their minds. They need the Matrix because they are afraid of being free. If there is no prison for us we need to create it because the prison is an attribute of our reality. This is the greatest paradox of the human development. Our social and technical progress restricts our freedom.
According to Morpheus the Matrix is a prison for your mind. The creators of the movie use the Ancient Greek terms to create the parallel with the Ancient Greek history. Thus the character of Oracle is similar to that from the ancient Greek legend. She gives Neo the choice either to save his life or that of Morpheus. In the Greek legend the king Leonidas was put before the choice by Oracle of saving his own life or saving the city. Thus, ultimately, Neo's choice was the same as that of Leonidas: his own life, or the fate of a city 4.
The Matrix is the futuristic movie according to the plot but it is real warning and appeal to people to re-evaluate the moral values. The environments we have created should not start controlling us and it is critically that all sides of our environment like our sovereigns, scientists, politicians and the military should be controlled by us and this control is the essence of democracy. Then we may make a conclusion that the Matrix is possible when we fail to follow the democratic principles. The tragedy Oedipus Rex by Sophocles takes place in the ancient Thebes.
The topics of the fate and the prophecy are in the centre of the play. It is very difficult to compare the Matrix and Oedipus Rex but still there are some common problems revealed in both masterpieces. First of all the play by Sophocles shows the blindness of the destiny. The main idea of a play as well as that of the Matrix is that sometimes we fail to control our destinies. The fate may play tricks with the people as it has played with Oedipus.
The curse of the Oedipus father Laius has been transferred to Oedipus. The theme of the prophecy and inability to resist it is coming throughout the play. At his birth he was prophesied that he would kill his father. The entire play by Sophocles is the play on the irony of fate. The Greek theology was very specific.
The Greeks did know one God. The behavior of the Greek gods was unpredictable. Gods were everywhere and nowhere. Every natural phenomenon was sent by the Gods, but the Gods themselves were changeable. The Greeks did not expect justice from the Gods.
Even on heavens the holy dynasties were changeable. The Greeks were concerned only of not angering and praising the Gods. That was the Greece piety 5. The Greek society was free. The Greeks were free but fated. Their freedom depended upon their fate only.
It is impossible to overcome the fate as well as the Matrix which is created by the common mind of the humanity and can not be overcome. One of the main ideas of the play is the search of a justice. The fate shapes the destiny, but if it is unjust who is guilty for this? Oedipus is suffering not because he is guilty but because of his fate. This idea of the irrevocability of the fate resembles the relations of the Morpheus rebels with the Matrix agents. Agents can not be defeated.
People may try to escape from them only. Oedipus killed his father in strange circumstances. He did not know that Laius was his father. The fate plays the cruel game with Oedipus. He marries Jocasta without knowing that she was his mother. This is another terrible trick of the fate.
The play of Sophocles is the story of search of the Oedipus identity. He is facing a never-ending question Who am I? He is not a sinner because the fate puts him in the situations from which he can not find the way out. The plague epidemic made people apply to their king because he once succeeded to save them from a disaster. The main paradox of the play is that a man is free but he is under the fate which may do anything with the person, so the humans freedom is restricted by his fate which is in its turn is restricted by nothing. The irony of fate is manifested in the Oedipus desire to know the truth of the murderer through the blind seer Teiresias who named him a murderer.
Teiresias is a blind prophet who knows the truth and Oedipus is a seeing person who is blind to recognize the truth. Oedipus swears to punish the murderers of his father. The prophecies play the key role in the play. Under the influence of the prophecies Oedipus first try to identify the murderers of his father and later he is looking for his own identity. When he realizes it, the destiny strikes him once more. The fate of Oedipus is generalized by the brilliant playwright.
The author applies the tragedy of Oedipus to the entire mankind. If such a noble ruler as Oedipus is exposed to the fates collision then nobody is guaranteed from such strikes of the fate. Oedipus discounts the power of the oracles and values the power of truths. He opposes his search to the truth of oracles. The irony of the play is that the truth of the oracles and the researches of Oedipus lead to the same result thus confirming the supremacy of fate.
Two masterpieces are parted by the millenniums, but they have some common features. First of all it is the role of fate in the human development. The Matrix shows the possible result of the technological development. While watching the movie it may seem that the Matrix is not the peoples product but that of the fate. We may either believe in god or not. We may be atheists but no one can deny the role of fate in the development of the humanity.
When scientists invented the chain reaction they did not think of the consequence it may bring. They were moved by the scientific curiosity. The fate has led them both to an inexhaustible source of the cheap energy and to the most destructive weapon. It is unlikely that the Matrix has been invented originally as self sufficient human dignity pressing machine, but the fate made it as it is in the movie. Bibliography The Matrix, available at web retrieved 3. 04. 2005 The Matrix, Wikipedia, available at web retrieved 3. 04. 2005 David A.
Wheeler, Man as the World-Builder, available at web retrieved 3. 04. 2005 Maureen C. Howard, Sophocles Oedipus Rex, Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute, available at web retrieved 3. 04. 2005 Citation The Matrix Wikipedia David A. Wheeler Wikipedia Maureen C. Howard
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Research essay sample on Oedipus Rex And The Matrix
