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The One-Eyed Man is King: Oedipal Vision in Minority Report
- Arethusa
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 41, Number 1, Winter 2008
- pp. 95-112
- 10.1353/are.2008.0003
- Article
- Additional Information
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Minority Reports is a legitimate child of Oedipus Tyrannus. In each, a powerful detective reopens an unsolved homicide case and is himself subsequently accused of murder. Moreover, both productions combine theme and imagery to explore the complex relationship between blindness, sight, and knowledge. Yet the film also differs from its dramatic parent, altering and rejecting crucial Sophoclean features. It is not a tragedy in any Aristotelian sense. It undermines the authority of fate. And in the conflict between the divine and the political, it undercuts the former to side with the latter.