Oedipal Anxieties in HBO’s Westworld

Abstract

In recent decades, scholars have recognized close connections between Western film and Greek and Roman antiquity, a relationship HBO’s Westworld brings into sharp relief through classical themes, characterizations, and allusions. Two episodes from season 2 in particular have a heavy classical bent. Episode 4 (“Riddle of the Sphinx”) casts park owner James Delos as an Oedipus figure who, in attempting to avoid his fate, runs right into it, as he is confronted with the truth about his nature and identity. In episode 9, William too is identified with Oedipus, when his wife commits suicide after recognizing her husband’s true nature, and William murders his own kin through a failure of recognition, while quotations from Plutarch and Plotinus highlight the issues of identity, fate, and self-knowledge that resound throughout the episode. While the series more broadly is concerned with patriarchal overreach and issues of free will and identity, these two episodes, when examined through a classical lens, offer a concentrated view. In the end, much like its Sophoclean predecessor, Westworld works as an implicit criticism of unbridled ambition, patriarchal narcissism, and lack of self-awareness.