Why does Oedipus suffer so much in Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus?

That Oedipus is subjected to so much suffering during the course of the play has been a subject of much interest to it’s many commentators: the protagonist undergoes blindness, hears a graphic depiction of the suicide of his mother, and eventually comes to realise that he murdered his own father and (in so doing) cursed his own city. And this is only in the play Oedipus Tyrannus: in Sophocles' Antigone Oedipus' two sons murder each other whilst disputing who should rule the city; Oedipus' daughter Antigone is buried alive; and finally in Oedipus at Colonus, we see the blind old man wandering the wilderness in exile having lost his city and all his family. Why does Oedipus suffer so much? Is there are any justification for the pain he is subjected to and, if not, what does this tell us about the moral universe of Sophocles' play? In answering these questions, we'll first consider to what extent Oedipus can be considered morally responsible for his crimes, especially in light of his hubristic character. After establishing the extent to which we can consider Oedipus' suffering just relative to his actions, we will then go on to consider the role of the gods and of prophecy, and question if Oedipus is really responsible for his suffering, or if it rather the malice of the Ancient Greek Tragic universe. Firstly, his character. What actions and words form Oedipus’ character, and to what extent can we argue they contribute to his downfall? The whole play is instigated by a plague sent by the gods; the city is cursed because it’s previous leader, Laius, was murdered. Insomuch as Oedipus murdered Laius, Oedipus is clearly guilty of the original sin which sets the play in motion and ends up ravaging much of the city’s populous. When Oedipus describes how he murdered Laius, his self-portrait indicates an aggressive and hubristic character, savagely slaughtering a retinue of followers simply because they wouldn’t move out of his way. We see the protagonist’s ill-temperament even within the timeframe of the play; consider how ruthlessly he treats the prophet Tiresias for refusing to divulge the terrible secret, as he threatens to have the old prophet tortured (itself an offense to Apollo). And again, when the Shepherd is brought before Oedipus to explain the story of his origin; and the secret-bearer again tries to protect the king from the truth; Oedipus again threatens to have the old man tortured. Such belligerence does not seem warranted. But this only takes us as far as to say that Oedipus deserves to be punished for committing murder. That the victim of the crime was his own father is, of course, beyond the knowledge of the protagonist. Especially gratuitous is the fact that Oedipus also suffers the indignity of sleeping with his mother, then loses both mother and wife to suicide. There isn’t any real justification as to why Oedipus deserves to suffer this. Furthermore, we may challenge the extent to which Oedipus’ character is entirely condemnable. At multiple points in the play we see his sympathy and kindness as a king; at the beginning of the play, he describes how he suffers for every ailing victim of the plague; he truly feels for his people, and ultimately damns himself to save them. Why does this man deserve his fate?Put simply, I don’t think he does. Oedipus may be rash in temperament and something of a brutal interrogator, but we have no reason to believe he deserves the “Tyrannus” appended to his name (which in the Greek context actually applies to any monarch, not necessarily a tyrannical one); nor indeed does he deserve to accidentally commit patricide and incest. The reason that he does lies rather with the gods and with the sins of his father. To consider the latter; we have seen that one person’s crimes may infect the innocent by association in the fact that the whole of Thebes suffers the plague for Oedipus’ actions alone; Oedipus, by extension, could be suffering for the sins of his father Laius, who kidnapped and raped Chrysippus. In Ancient Greek society, moral transgression is a disease both infectious and hereditary.Lastly, Oedipus suffers in no small part simply for the fact that he is fated to do so. Apollo’s prophecy must be fulfilled, and the more Jocasta, Laius, Tiresias, and the Shepherd attempt to prevent it, the more inexorably Oedipus walks down his predetermined path. Maybe this is Apollo’s revenge for Oedipus solving the sphinx’s riddle. But I think the more likely explanation is that Oedipus is condemned to this fate, and all the suffering it entails, simply for the fact that life isn’t fair and the Greeks gods (at least, according to the tragic tradition) are unjust; indeed, in Plato’s Euthyphro Socrates condemns the depiction of gods in poetry and theatre for precisely this reason. It is a vital aspect of the tragic worldview that human suffering is immense and, really, completely unjustified. For a more detailed explanation of this theme, I highly recommend Jan Kott’s excellent essay on King Lear and Oedipus Tyrannus in Shakespeare Our Contemporary. In conclusion, we may argue that Oedipus deserves punishment to a certain extent for the rash murder of a stranger on the street; but not for patricide, nor for incest. So why does Oedipus suffer? Precisely for the reason most of us suffer; because the universe is unjust. That Oedipus suffers unjustly is not a flaw in the play, but the point of it.