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(705-710) In order to ease Oedipus’ mind, Jocasta tells Oedipus about her own encounter
with a prophecy. Because the prophecy did not come true, she concludes and wishes
Oedipus to conclude that prophecies are worthless. (711-25, 857-8) On the basis of her
debunking the diviner’s craft, Jocasta develops a worldview, which is embedded in a
prayer we hear her deliver at the altar of Apollo. Apparently, she shares her son’s (and
current husband’s) appetite for intelligibility, or for comprehensive explanations. In her
prayer, Jocasta suggests that one should not look beyond one’s sensory perceptions, but
one should absolutely make use of one’s sense perceptions. For she tellingly describes
Thebes as a rudderless ship, whose captain is currently not in his right mind, endangering
their lives and filling them with fear. (911-23) And, with fear life is unlivable, as she also
makes evident when she discloses that she went to the extreme of killing her son to
eliminate the fear that he would one day murder Laius. Their son was killed on the altar
of misguided fears. Having borne a misguided fear once, she swore never to do so again.
At the moment of her son’s death, or supposed death - in other words, when she thinks
the divination has been disproved - Jocasta dumps metaphysics and places all of her chips
on empiricism. Like Oedipus, she too, then, places great stock in sight, but shares
nothing of Oedipus’ idealism. She is a pragmatist, a sort of Theban Richard Rorty.
There are no universals. All we can do is ease suffering, and we should do this only to
the extent that we are able. (977-79) Her worldview, evidently, has accomplished its
mission, for she lives not only a fear-free, but a guilt-free life. She does not fear moral
transgressions as does Oedipus, because Oedipus’ transgressions are experienced from to
time to time in dreams by almost everyone, and so whether we do the deed or not we
experience its image. We experience it in our minds, the same place we experience the
Convention