Colonus

Colonus enters the book as the place associated with Oedipus’s lament over his fate, and gains significance through a philosophical contrast: Oedipus becomes nonhuman upon acquiring the properties of an ordinary human, while Odradek appears human only in the form of something that no longer resembles a human being. The location is thus not described for its physical features; its force comes from the account of Oedipus attached to it.

Oedipus and the Loss of the Human

At Colonus, Oedipus serves as a figure for a reversal in the relation between humanity and the inhuman. The passage presents him as lamenting that he became nonhuman when he finally acquired the properties of an ordinary human. Colonus consequently marks the place where the supposedly familiar definition of the human turns against itself: possessing ordinary human properties does not secure Oedipus’s place among ordinary humans.

A Counterpoint to Odradek

The reference to Oedipus clarifies the book’s contrast with Odradek. Oedipus becomes nonhuman through the acquisition of ordinary human properties; Odradek, by contrast, is described as human despite not resembling a human being. The difference makes Colonus a conceptual counterpoint in the discussion of humanity’s inhuman excess, rather than a setting developed through local description or a sequence of events.

Place in the Argument

The book also invokes Oedipus at Colonus to give an image to the subject reduced to a minimal, excessive remainder: a tiny gesture or object that sticks out and stains the Symbolic. Colonus therefore connects Oedipus’s altered status with the broader argument about how symbolic identities can leave behind something that does not fit their order. The passage does not elaborate the geography of Colonus; it uses the place-name to concentrate this contrast in the figure of Oedipus.