Uncontrolled Emotions and Their Consequences The plays Trifles by Susan Glaspell and Oedipus the King by Sophocles illustrate how uncontrolled emotions, such as fear, anger, embarrassment and can lead to bad consequences, including impulsive actions, destroying lives, and ultimately death. When reading these plays, the reader sees how detrimental negative emotions can be when it comes to the well-being of themselves and others that are in their lives.
Not only can the lack of control of these emotions cause physical pain, but it can also cause emotional distress and also can cause distrust within relationships ultimately causing the relationships to be ruined. The reader is given good examples of cause and effect of how emotions can ruin a person’s life based off of how they are controlled. As humans we are all given emotions, and sometimes we are given challenges to test our emotional control, however it is only when we learn how to control them that we actually learn how to find happiness within ourselves.
The first type of uncontrolled emotion that can lead to bad consequences is fear. In Trifles, the reader understands that Mrs. Wright has significantly changed as a person since being with Mr. Wright. The play gives a good example of this noticeable change when Mrs. Hale expressed her opinion of why she feels Mrs. Wright has changed stating “… I don’t think a place’d be any cheer-fuller for John Wright’s being in it,” (page 1389. ) With this statement, the play gives a better perspective of how much control Mr. Wright actually had over Mrs. Wright’s happiness.
Mr. Wright definitely crosses a line when he kills Mrs. Wright bird, which ultimately leads to his death; however, the emotional damage was already done before her bird got killed. Oedipus the King is a play that shows how fear can most definitely causes bad consequences. During the search for the killer of his father, many of people try to avoid telling Oedipus who killed his father out of fear that he wouldn’t believe him.
There is an example of this when Oedipus demands for Tiresias to confess who was the killer of Oedipus’ father, when Tiresias does reveal what he knows, Oedipus mocks him, he calls him “stone blind, stone deaf “(page 1453) because Oedipus doesn’t want to believe Tiresias. Ultimately, it is responses like this that caused Tessisas to reveal the information, regardless of outcome and cause a destruction in their friendship and trust with each other. The second type of uncontrolled emotion and its negative consequences is anger.
In Trifles, Mr. Wright has an inability to control his anger and it is because this lack of control of that Mr. Wright demolishes any hope of maintaining a healthy relationship with Mrs. Wright which in turn makes her resentful. His lack of control of his temper also is the cause for him killing Mrs. Wright’s canary, which in turn is the final straw for Mrs. Wright and gives her what she thinks is good reasoning to kill her husband.
The canary was what Mrs. Wright connected to the most in her life, Mrs. Hale describes it best when saying “come to think of it, she was kind of like a bird herself”(page 1392). When Mr. Wright killed the canary he killed any sanity Mrs. Wright had left, which is why she murders him the same way he murders the canary. Another example of anger is demonstrated when Oedipus gets irate when Tiresias doesn’t reveal the information that he knows about the father of Oedipus. When Tiresias tells Oedipus to “rage [his] worst” (page 1452), Oedipus responds “Oh I’ll let loose, I have such fury in me” (page 1452).
It is lack of emotional control like this that causes Oedipus to lose most, if not all the respect of the people that he had relations with before the situation occurred. Which in turn, ruins most of his relationships and trust with not only the townspeople, but also his close friends that trusted him to be a fair and just leader. The third example of a negative emotion, which could cause great harm if not controlled is embarrassment. As children we learn what it is to be embarrassed, we also learn that our reaction to the embarrassment is what either makes the situation better, or makes it worse.
In Oedipus the King, the play reveals that Oedipus runs away from his city of birth because he is embarrassed of a prophecy that he was going to kill his father and have a relationship with his mother. The unfortunate part about him running away from the embarrassment is that unfortunately the prophecy happens anyway. Initially Oedipus doesn’t know this to be a true fact, however, upon his investigations and mockery of many townspeople, the conclusion was made that in fact he was the murderer.
Upon this conclusion he finds great embarrassment brought on upon himself, towards not only the situation but the lack of control that he presented during the entire investigation. At the end of the play he acts impulsively because his embarrassment for his ignorant actions by proclaiming “cursed in my birth, cursed in marriage, cursed in the lives I cut down with these hands! ” (page 1475) and then he proceeds to blind himself out of pure uncontrolled emotion. With both of these plays there are many examples of how the characters act emotionally, and the consequences that result in the lack of control of so said emotions.
One sees how fear, anger and embarrassment can all be detrimental for many aspects of our lives if the reader does not control these emotions correctly. The unfortunate part of both of the plays is that the reader is shown more of lack of control of the emotions and how the relationships are demolished, death was brought upon the some characters, and how impulsive actions can cause lack of control. With these two plays the reader is taught a very valuable lesson, be aware of your reaction to situations, more times than not there is no going back to correct yourself.