Bad Luck

Abstract This chapter cuts against the grain of the book’s main argument in its consideration of the “archaic pessimism” of Sophocles in the Oedipus Tyrannus. Examining Sophocles’ language of luck, fate, and the divine, the chapter argues that the Oedipus Tyrannus yields an account of Oedipus’ bad luck as neither random happenstance, divine destiny, nor the perfect confluence of these, but rather as the distinctive yet mysterious shape of Oedipus’ whole life in ruin. This shape is a manifestation of Oedipus’ daimōn. That Oedipus’ life evinces a clear story and shape in the end—even though it frustrates every expectation and aspiration of the intelligent and noble Oedipus—indicates the limits of human reason and the corresponding darkness of the Sophoclean tragic universe. In such a universe, bad luck remains a useful idea: it can help us to tell the story of what we do not (and cannot) know.