Destiny, Fate, Free Will and Free Choice in Oedipus the King - Power of Prophecy

That is not unlike Christianity when God comes down and tells Noah that there will be a great flood. Oedipus has no idea of this and when he finds out he doesn't believe it. But in the beginning he has no idea of this fact, this is due to the fact that this was told to his parents and not to him because he was still an infant. When the king and queen were told this, they immediately and reluctantly told one of the servants to take the child away and have Oedipus's life snuffed out. So to make a long story short, Oedipus was left hanging from a tree by his ankles and a shepherd who gave him to another shepherd. Now this shepherd gave the young child to the king and queen of another island. He was raised without the knowledge of his true heredity. Thusly, he could not have seen the gross erroneous event that was about to occur and change his life drastically and cause his eventual downfall after this series of events occurs. But even without the knowledge of his horrendous future he still used free will to kill the man he met in the woods and marry the Queen of Thebes.

Oedipus’ doom was already predetermined by an Oracle at Delphi before the moment of his birth; thus, despite what choices the people who played a

Although Oedipus’s fate was already determined, he is not just a mere puppet of the gods, meaning he can control his own life. Before full knowledge of his unintentional incest, he tries to flee town in order to avoid marrying his mother. By doing this he is taking matters

Fate is unavoidable causing the fall of Oedipus. Oedipus’ parents tried avoiding fate with their son, when they “pierced the baby's ankles And left him to die on a lonely mountainside” (Sophocles 977). Ultimately true fate was for Oedipus to murder his father and impregnate his mother. Oedipus states, “I should lie with my own mother, breed Children from whom all men would turn their eyes; And that I should be my father's murderer” (Sophocles 979). Trying to avoid fate, Oedipus “fled” from Corinth (Sophocles 979). By leaving, Oedipus thinks he will stop this “wretchedness” from happening (Sophocles 979). Due to Oedipus unavoidable fate, “children die unborn, And labor is vain” (Sophocles 960). Oedipus is uncertain why this plague is taking place. Creon emphasizes that “It was murder that brought the plague-wind on the city” (Sophocles 962). Oedipus eagerly wanted to find the king Laios’ killer.

Sophocles’ “Oedipus the King” captures a story in which a prophecy is bestowed upon a King by the name of Laius and the family that he will bear. The prophecy states the Laius will be murdered by his own son. His son will then go on to have children with his own mother. In reading Sophocles’ “Oedipus the King”, the fact remains unquestionable that the King, Oedipus is portrayed as an oblivious and arrogant soul, however just how insensible can Oedipus be? Within the three quotes Oedipus can be portrayed as being an oblivious man who is arrogant, a man who has a deficiency of common sense, and also a man who is wise beyond his years.

When the Greeks received bad prophecies, they often tried to avoid their fate through actions of their own. When Laius hears that his son will kill him, he tries to avoid it. He, along with Iocaste, pins their child’s legs together and gives him to a messenger to be disposed of on a mountain. However, out of pity for the boy, the messenger gives the baby to a shepherd of a nearby town, Corinth. Thus the boy grows up to become Oedipus. Later in his life, Oedipus learns

He may be a very smart man, but he is also arrogant and seems not to understand the work of a king at all. In the first scene, beggars come to Oedipus and tell him of the great misfortunes of their lives. Instead of trying to find a long term solution for their problems, he sent out his brother-in-law to visit a oracle. So even as Oedipus continues to live his nice, cozy king life while his people suffer, he still tells his people that his is so stressed that he has the worst of it all. When he hears of the curse that came after Laios’ murder, he sees red and curses the man who killed Laios.

Since the beginning, Oedipus’ fate has been chosen by the gods. When it was prophesied that Laius and Jocasta were to have a son that will kill his own father, marry his mother, and bear her children, they were unraveled. Since Laius and Jocasta feared the prophecy, they tried try to put fate into their own hands, which causes them to fulfill the same fate they had sought to escape. In the same way, when Oedipus was made aware of the same prophecy, by a drunkard, he attempts to control his own fate. In the attempt to flee from his horrid fate, he runs away, unknowingly fulfilling the oracle, becoming a victim of the gods’ ill doing.

The play states, “…a prophecy had foretold that Oedipus would grow up to slay his father, he had been taken out as a newborn to perish in the wilderness of Mount Cithaeron outside Thebes (Sophocles 1163).” His fate was inevitability known as sealed and inescapable. Trying to avoid this unimaginable destiny, his mother and father abandon Oedipus by giving him to a servant ordering Oedipus left for dead. He was soon discovered and brought to the city of Corinth and was supposedly adopted.

After Oedipus mocks Tiresias for saying that he’s the curse, the blind prophet asks Oedipus “who are your parents?” He appears to not believe it, but deep down inside, he becomes suspicious of the possibility of the truth behind the old man’s wise words. Oedipus then accuses Creon of “plotting to kill me, kill the king” but he insists that he’d rather sit back and relax since he has the “king’s power in my hands” without “painful duties to perform”. Next, when Jocasta appears, she describes Laius’ murder to Oedipus who then insists that he speak to the lone survivor, the shepherd. The messenger from Corinth then comes and when questioned, confirms that “Polybus was nothing to you...not in blood.” Later when the shepherd finally arrive, he verifies that the prophecy of Jocasta being both mother and wife to Oedipus is true when Oedipus ask him, “my wife- she gave it (her innocent baby) to you?” The shepherd also reluctantly admits to the messenger that he “gave me a child back then.” Oedipus is horrified and says with a new understanding, “all burst to light! I stand cursed in my birth, cursed in marriage, cursed in the lives I cut down with these hands!” The king finally realizes that he must die to save the city from the curse since the prophecy saying he’d be both husband and son to the same woman is proved to be true. Oedipus’ search for justice is

Oedipus has the power to decide if he wants to pursue finding out about his past life, and he chooses to seek it. Oedipus is proud of his character and says, “I come to see it with my eyes, no messenger’s. Yes, I whom men call Oedipus the Great” (Sophocles 5). Oedipus knows he is loved by the citizens which boosts his self-confidence so that when he finds out about this prophecy, he will want to know even more about it. He is boasting in his greatness and knows he has power to his advantage.

The fact that Oedipus fled his home upon finding out about the prophecy shows that he is not a man that desired hurting his family. He left behind all he knew to try and ensure the safety of his family; “I heard all of this, and fled. And from that day Corinth to me was only in the stars”. (Wilde 1327) Had Oedipus known about the prophecy and just let things play out then he would

I have chosen to answer number one on this week's discussion board assignment. Throughout the play, the characters are torn between a prophecy that will cause a family downfall by their hands of the son. While debating Oedipus's problem, Jocasta speaks of the prophecy that was given to Laius stating, "that he slay his father nor that Laius suffer the terrible thing he feared from his child."(750) From birth, Oedipus is tainted by this prediction and will be cast away from his parents in fear of the prophecy.The battle between destiny and choice in Sophocles's play comes fairly close while trying to chose which one dominates the other. I say this because even though the parents were told their future would the same outcome happen if they did

In Oedipus Rex, Oedipus makes decisions that further the unraveling of his fate. For example, when trying to avoid the murder of his thought to be father, Oedipus ends up setting himself up for his cursed future. His decision to leave Corinth only solidifies his fate. Fate and prophecy are tied together in Oedipus Rex. When Tiresias speaks of a prophecy, it is known to come true, even if the characters do not believe it at first. This can be seen when Jocasta first hears of Oedipus ' grim prophecy. She believes that it holds no truth because of her past experience with them. Although at certain points in the play, it

Oedipus, having heard his fate from an oracle, attempts to escape it, but only fulfils it through his attempts to elude it. As a young and naive mortal, Oedipus, attempts to evade the gods and cast them to the side by trying to set his own fate, but this very disrespect of the gods unravels his fate before him. This escape from fate, however, does not begin with Oedipus, but with his true father, Laïos, who “had pierced the baby [Oedipus’] ankles and left him to die,” in attempt to prevent the future events (38). The father, who had also been told of his child’s fate, endeavors to kill this child and prevent the soiling of his lineage and his ultimate downfall. Laïos, in trying to avoid fate, sets a precedent for his son, giving light to the old maxim of “the apple doesn't fall far from the tree,” and shows that the corruption is not inherent in their fate, but of their