Sophocles updated in stunning visuals: Oedipus, Electra and Antigone in young readers’ comics and graphic novels as confirmation of human self-determination

Abstract

This essay focuses on a corpus of five current adaptions of the mythical narratives about Oedipus, Electra, and Antigone, which are part of the mythical megatext concerning the Labdacids and Tantalids. For this topic Sophocles’ tragedies serve as a basic structure and hypotexts. Consequently these postmodern works are compared with the versions presented by Sophocles in order to reveal the tendency to replace the image of an ancient life determined by gods with a self-determined life in (post-)modern times. In this context the mythical protagonists of the analysed comics and graphic novels act as free and independent human beings who make decisions on the basis of their own free will. What is also remarkable in this corpus is that Antigone’s heroic achievements are reinterpreted as a sign of individual freedom and feminism in the context of the me-too debates. In these texts, the ancient determinism of mankind is dissolved in order to create a modern and self-confident idea of human beings, which undermines the dominant values of antiquity.