Does Oedipus Have His Fate

A person’s actions, feelings and behaviour towards others all largely impact their own future. Some citizens in society tend to make bad decisions in their lives and create trouble for themselves all because they did not take time to consider the influence they have upon themselves and those around them. Acting without thinking of the repercussions and behaving in difficult ways are just some examples of how people cause their own fate. One man that demonstrates these issues and causes major problems for himself is Oedipus. Oedipus’ pride, impetuous behaviour and lack of insight ultimately determine his inevitable fate.

In Sophocles' Oedipus the King, the element of fate versus freewill shows up frequently all through the play. It is foreseen to Oedipus' parents, Jocasta and Laius, that their child would grow up to slaughter his father and wed his mother. Jocasta and Laius endeavor to dispose of their child, however, fate triumphs. Oedipus' fate all through the play has been chosen by the fate which adds to his annihilation. Various societies and cultures all through history have embraced similar perspectives, accepting a fate or destiny for their lives. Such points of view are very common is Greek myths who had confidence in "the three Fates" — goddesses who controlled the lives of individuals and the world in general. Clotho the youngest spins the thread of human life. She decides who will be born and when. Lachesis, a matron, measures the thread deciding a person’s lot in life. She is shown with a measuring stick, a scroll, a book, or a globe that represents the horoscope. Atropos, the oldest, choses the mechanism of death and ends the life of each mortal by cutting their thread. She is usually portrayed with a cutting instrument, a scroll, a wax tablet, a sundial, or a pair of scales. Even in modern day, some Christian philosophies incorporate destiny as fate. Many Jews acknowledge that their God has an arrangement for their people and nation.

In the beginning of the story, Oedipus is very taken back by the situation. He will not accept the truth of his fate and accuses Tiresias of lying to him so Oedipus’s bother- in- law, Creon, could take the throne. Oedipus is extremely dumbfounded by this news because he had no knowledge of killing his father or marrying his mother, but what he learns later is that who he thought were his parents were not his real parents. When he finally realizes that he did in fact marry his own mother and kill his father, he accepts it and punishes himself in order to uphold his promise to his people. By this point there is no way Oedipus can escape his fate. Tiresias says to Oedipus, “No man in the world can make the gods do more than the gods will” (811). Since he did kill his father, the previous king, Oedipus has to be shunned by all of Thebes. Because there is no way of changing his fate, he accepts his responsibilities by giving himself the punishment he assigned to the murderer of Laius.

Oedipus the King is a tragedy that displays irony throughout the play. In the play, King Laius and his wife Jocasta learn that in the prophecy their newborn son, Oedipus, will kill his father and marry his mother. In order to prevent the prophecy from occurring, they decide to bind and tie his ankles and then abandoned him. When Oedipus grew up, he eventually learned about this prophecy and decided to leave his parents. What he did not realize was that the parents who raised him were not his biological parents. On his voyage to Thebes, Oedipus ended up in a chariot accident

Sophocles uses a mixture of both visual and emotional imagery to create the morally questioning, Greek tragedy ‘Oedipus Tyrannos'. He presents the audience with an intense drama, which addresses the reality and importance of the gods that the Greeks fervently believed in. The play also forces the audience to ask themselves if there is such a concept as fate.

Fate is a crucial element that often occurs frequently in Greek writing. Throughout the play Oedipus tries to change his fate. He found out that no matter what he did that his fate was sealed and there was no escaping that fate. His fate was predicted down to, he would kill his father, Laius and marry and have sexual relations with his mother, Jocasta. Oedipus wants to invade this entire situation once he learns what his fate is told to be by three oracles. “OEDIPUS

“People of this city, look, this man is Oedipus,/ Who guesses the famous riddle, who rose to greatness,/ Envy of all in the city who saw his good fortune./ And now what a fearful storm of disaster has struck him.”(1478-1480), was the final quote of the chorus in Oedipus the King. Regardless of how recognized, wealthy, or successful one is their true greatness lies in with inner qualities, such as righteousness, nobility, and fidelity, rather than in external qualities. This idea, that was established in the Athenian tragedy, written by the playwright, Sophocles, in 429 B.C., has continued to be valued nearly two millennia later. This tragedy stresses what can happen if one believes he/she is too great to take wisdom of others into account. Believing that one is above everyone else can cause substantial flaws that leads to one’s downfall, as it happened to Oedipus. As emphasized in the play, having an over-sized ego not only affects oneself, but potentially those one cares about as well.

The play Oedipus Rex tells a story of a man who is fated to kill his father and marry his mother. Oedipus, the protagonist, deserves his fate insofar as he is headstrong, quick to judge with hubris or overweening pride. Firstly, Oedipus does not seem to have been capable of changing his fate because there is a prophecy on his life. "The killer of Laius- that man is here; passing for an alien, a sojourner here among us; but, as presently shall appear, a Theban born, to his cost. He that came seeing, blind shall he go; Rich now, then a beggar; stick-in-hand, groping his way to a land of exile; brother, as it shall be shown, and father at once, to the children he cherishes; son, and husband, to the woman who bore him; father-killer, and father-supplanter" (Sophocles 38). Secondly, Oedipus attempts to run from his fate, in which Oedipus killed his father, Laius, at a place where three roads meet. Crossroads are a traditional symbol of choice in literature, you

Oedipus, The King unfolds as a murder mystery, a political thriller, and a psychological tragedy. Throughout this mythic story of patricide and incest, Sophocles emphasizes the irony of a man determined to expose and punish an assassin, only to find out that the man himself is at fault. This revelation guides the story by presenting a confliction of morals and introducing the concept of fate. Oedipus truly believes that he alone can control his destiny but his lack of knowledge ultimately leads to his demise.

Oedipus-the king is a true Greek novel in all sense. It is a tragedy at heart and explores various emotions and instances of human life in a suspenseful and heart trenching way. Oedipus the King unfolds as a murder mystery, a political thriller, and a psychological whodunit (The Oedipus trilogy). In this mythic story of patricide and Oedipal love, Sophocles emphasizes the irony of a man determined to track down, expose, and put the man behind bars who killed king Laius and funny though, the man turns out to be himself. The hero of the play, Oedipus is a ruler of Greek city, Thebes and had become king by solving the riddle of Sphinx and marrying the Queen Jocasta. It totally grips a persons’ interest and tell about the moral values of life. A lot of Themes have been discussed, but the one which seems basic structure of the story is the role of fate in whole play. I think fate played an interesting aspect of Oedipus’ life throughout the play. It was fate which was responsible for most of the circumstances in the story. But was the fate only criterion that led to fall of

The titular character of Oedipus Rex is a sympathetic one due to the fact that he is a victim of fate. In the play fate is depicted as something that can not be avoided under any circumstances whatsoever. This was a commonly held belief by the ancient greeks. In today’s world however, fewer and fewer people believe in the concept of predestination. Most people nowadays believe that we, as humans, are the masters of our own destiny which, might make it difficult for a modern audience to truly connect with the play as many would argue that Oedipus could have in fact, avoided his fate. For example, Oedipus gets in a fight with an elderly man driving a carriage while escaping his home town. He hits the man with a stick, which causes him to crash

Oedipus’s birth wasn’t welcomed with open arms. His father Laius was told by the Oracle of Delphi that once he grew order, Oedipus would murder him and in turn marry his mother, conceiving children of their own. Hearing the news, Laius decided to send Oedipus far away from him and his wife to be killed by a shepherd, fearing the prophecy would be fulfilled. Taking pity on the newborn, the shepherd spared Oedipus’s life and sent him to be raised by a couple of powerful rulers in Corinth, where he would spend the majority of his life, never realizing the identity of his true parents. Once an adult, he discovers his prophecy from the Oracle, just like his father once had, and decides to never return home, wanting to reserve his parents from the pain that accompanies death and betrayal. On the journey to the city of Thebes, where he’d soon be king, Oedipus confronts a stubborn man denying him to continue on. In a violent dispute, Oedipus kills the man, who turns out to be Laius. He’s declared king in the absence of Laius, but as word spreads about Laius’s death, Oedipus is the first to be accused. Corroborating the accounts of Tiresias,

To have a fatalistic perspective on the experiences one acquires is to believe that humans do not partake in the development of our fate — that one’s future is inculcated in one’s story. Ergo, the implication is that the role of choice is limited. In a quixotic world, fate would work in conjunction with quotidian choices and, therefore, create a favorable outcome. Relating back to ancient Greek literature, playwright Sophocles wrote a play named Oedipus the King that addresses the nuanced roles of fate and free will — whether one encounters adversity as a result of their self-imposed actions or their predetermined path. This ambiguity of the interconnected roles of fate and free will allows for an intricate development of the theme. As Oedipus attempts to evade his prophesied fate, which leads to an unraveling of events that allows for the fall of Oedipus as a tragic hero, fate and free will make themselves present through character development, motifs, and metaphorical symbolism.

Oedipus born from a union destined for disaster by parents who believed could outsmart and avoid the prophecy forewarned by “an oracle that came to Laius…[and] told him that it was fate that he should die a victim at the hands of his own son”(493) was bound from the beginning to end in tragedy. Oedipus suffered from his parents ignorance and paid the price by committing a crime against nature not only by killing his real father but also marrying his mother unrenowned to him. Oedipus did not have any say in the choice that his parents made and because of their self-righteousness he fell victim to fulfilling the prophecy.

In Greek Mythology, fate and free will plays an important part in a person’s life. This was demonstrated in Sophocles play Oedipus the king. Sophocles had written this play to show people of Greece how much the gods are important when it comes to a person’s fate. It is said that a person’s fate is predetermined and no-one or nothing can change it. Sophocles does this by showing how the main character Oedipus tried to run away from his fate and how in the end his fate caught up with him.