It's all Greek to me...
The language of competition
Homer may be having a big screen debut (The Odyssey is due for release July 2026) but here in London’s West End, Sophocles is having quite the season!
Just weeks after watching Mark Strong play Oedipus at Wyndham’s theatre, Rami Malek has taken on the same role at the Old Vic, while Brie Larson is performing Elektra at the Duke of York’s.
Just to recap the plots of both plays…
1.When Oedipus was born to the King and Queen of Thebes, an Oracle prophesized that he would kill his father and marry his mother. To avoid this catastrophe, he was left in the wilderness to die. Hearing his cries, a local couple found and adopted him.
As an adult, Oedipus left home to seek fame and fortune. Along the way, he got into a fight and killed a man (who turned out to be the King). His “reward” for dispatching this unpopular tyrant was to marry the Queen.
Years (and several children) later he realised his wife was his mother and the man he killed was his father. His shame and self-disgust were so great he poked his own eyes out.
2.As a small child, Elektra idolized her father Agamemnon, who seemed to be more focused on his work (sailing off to fight a war against the Trojans).
When his ships couldn’t leave because of the lack of wind, Agamemnon sacrificed Elektra’s older sister to the Goddess Artemis. His wife, Clytemnestra was FURIOUS but by the time she found out, he was already gone – along with his fair wind and a thousand ships.
For ten years Clytemnestra plotted her revenge. When Agamemnon returned from the war, she killed him. Elektra, having spent her ten years angry at her neglectful mother and hero-worshipping her father, conspired with her brother to kill their mother. Elektra’s vengeance wasn’t sweet because years of bitter resentment can pretty much poison your soul.
While traditional storytelling invokes emotions of love (romance) joy (comedy) and intrigue (drama), Greek plays like to confront the darker patterns in our psychology – shame/disgust (Oedipus) and rage/vengeance (Elektra).
Freud of course sexualised both these stories, naming them the Oedipus or Elektra complex (boys want to have sex with their mother and kill their father/girls want to have sex with their father and kill their mother). Sex sells (then and now) and therapy is a lucrative business model.
But that’s not the point. Metaphorically it’s about our relationship to competition, which is hard-wired into us. Win the affection of the Mother, the Father must lose. Win the affection of Father, Mother loses. Decide not to compete for the affection of either parent – we lose. Win the affection of both parents – impossible (in any competition someone must lose).
It’s a Hobson’s choice (a free choice that is actually no choice at all). Winning brings feelings of guilt. Losing brings feelings of abandonment. Disconnection is an energetic death rather than a physical one.
We’re all needy – for attention, approval, and validation. We want to be seen, to know that we matter, to know that we’re loved. We think the only way to get these needs met is to compete.
Oedipus was physically abandoned by both parents. Elektra was emotionally abandoned by both parents (father work focused/mother grieving). Oedipus ended his life in shame and self-harm. Elektra ended hers in rage and vengeance.
Without a capacity for self-love and self-forgiveness, our creative expression can be self-destructive. Anger can be empowering. Sadness can inspire empathy, but shame and vengeance require self-annihilation.
Plato, another famous Greek likened humans to frightened cave dwellers who sat huddled around a fire, unaware that the scary shadows on the wall were their own magnified projection.
Sometimes we just need better lighting, a different script to reinterpret the plotlines of old beliefs, and above all, a greater capacity to play.
To this end, join me in Greece! for creative inspiration, healing outdated archetypal patterns, and re-writing the story of your life.
We can even visit Epidaurus, where Sophocles’ plays were first performed over 2,000 years ago :)