Free Will In Macbeth, The Odyssey, And Oedipus

Is one’s life dominated by fate or free will? Perhaps one’s future has been predetermined by some external force or perhaps one has the choice to pave their future. These ideas are further explored in the the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and the play Macbeth by Shakespeare. Things Fall Apart is about a man named Okonkwo’s struggle between the changes that arise with the arrival of white missionaries in the villages of his home in Nigeria, the conflicts that arise between the arrival of the white men and Okonkwo questions whether his tragic death was due to fate or free will. Macbeth is about protagonist Macbeth whose ambition drives him to kill the king of Scotland to become king. The consequences of killing the king lead to

   Destiny "Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved." (William Jennings Bryan) Are we in control of our own destiny, our own fate, or are our lives really already planned and mapped out for us? Does Macbeth willfully choose evil in order to achieve his "destiny"? Or, is his "destiny" doomed by the witches' prophecies? Macbeth may not have made any of his same choices, if the three Weird sisters hadn't come to him. In Shakespeare's play Macbeth, Macbeth is no pawn of fate. Although Macbeth was destined to become king, the path he chose to take to achieve his aspiration of obtaining the throne was of his own free

Free will is represented by the choices able to be made by those involved in the myth. In example, when the suitors take over the house of Odysseus, the choices they make to be disgusting, rude, and vile hits them with the violent repercussions that they deserve, meaning slaughter at the hand of Odysseus and his men. The Gods had the choice to interfere with the choices that the suitors were making, but knew that once Telemachus told Odysseus of how

Oedipus the King by Sophocles is the story of a man who was destined to kill his father and marry his mother. The story continues in the tradition of classic Greek plays, which were based upon the Greeks’ beliefs at the time. The ancient Greeks believed that their gods decided what would ultimately happen to each and every person. Since those gods destined Oedipus to kill his father and marry his mother, Oedipus’ life was definitely fated. However, the gods only decided where Oedipus’ life would eventually lead; they never planned the route he would take to get there. All the decisions that Oedipus made in order to fulfill his destiny, and the decisions he made after the fact, were of his own free will,

Fate can be thought as life being predetermined for the entirety of your days. From the early writings of Homer, specifically in the poem, The Iliad, there is a clear representation of whether it is free will or fate after all. Although we may never know whether there is a predetermined path or rather just free, it can only make one wonder. For most Greek Mythology, it is been evident that most of people’s decisions were not free will but rather fate itself. While people think they have free will, it may just be fate after all.

The Character that are in the Odyssey do not have “free will” as we define it today. Their fate is has already been decided, and there is not much that they can do to change what is going to happen. There is still a way to change how they get to their fate. Free will and fate are not mutually exclusive, even the gods can help change what is fated to come. It is clear that if you add all of this together you have flexible definition of what is “fated”.

What I think about fate, free will, and destiny is that we choose the way we want things to be and what we want to do with our future. So, in my opinion, we all choose our destiny because of the choices that we make. By making the right choices you can live the way you always wanted. The novel Fahrenheit 451 has a lot to do with the question because it talks about what the main character fate was and he also did some things that he shouldn’t have done and that counts as free will. This book has a couple of parts that show the fate and the free will the characters made and had to make.

How does the passage fit into the work from which it is taken - where does it occur, how does it advance the plot, who is speaking, to whom is it addressed?

Free will is an illusion. People always choose the perceived path of greatest pleasure. After reading Shakespeare ’s Macbeth, many wonder why Macbeth turns as evil as he does.

For example, if you leaped of a bridge and you died. It was your choice to jump it had nothing to do with faith or outside forces. If you decided to commit murder and go to jail, you control your destiny

Macbeth was completely driven by his own free will in making the choices that he did in Shakespeare's Macbeth. If he were controlled by destiny, he would not have felt so guilty of his actions. The witches may have predicted the future, but they are not the direct reason that made Macbeth so ruthless on his journey to the crown. His ambition is what caused him to make such blatant choices. He set himself up for his dramatic downfall through his own decisions.

On the play Macbeth, written by William Shakespeare, one of the themes is Fate vs. Free will. Macbeth does a lot of things during the story believing that they were his fate, but all of those things were though, planned and done by him because of nothing but his wishes. He has the option of doing them or not, and his decision is what really makes a difference in the story. The first example of that is Macbeth's choice to listen to the witches after them tell him what was supposed to happen in his life. He could have not believed in any of that or he could just keep living his life without trying to force anything.

Fate and free will are two topics that are often questionable because they go hand in hand. Fate is a belief that a certain event is said to happen, then that person's choice and free will lead them to what has been predicted as inevitable. Knowing whether something is fate’s fault or the fault of the person who’s going to enact the said action, is one question that has never been fully answered. In Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and Shakespeare's Macbeth, fate is determined by their own choices and free will, the character Macbeth knows of what lies ahead of him, making him alter the present to create his idealistic future, however instead he lives a life of ruins. As for Oedipus his entire actions are based on one prophecy he desperately

Ancient Greek Mythology has one side on fate vs free will. They feel as though you have no ultimate choice and fate will always be your destiny. However, that does not mean everyone follows their destined path until death. In Homer’s The Iliad, fate and destiny as the final outcomes of a person’s life, however, at some points you wonder if a person’s destiny falls directly in the decisions made by someone. Hektor and Achilles both had choices, but ultimately believed they must follow their destiny. In Beowulf, fate generally pulls out in the deciding factor of one’s destiny. It is fate that makes the legend he is. He goes through every challenge knowing that fate will be on his side. However, he showed free-will when he decided to help out Grendel. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, free-will was shown on a few occasions including Sir Gawain stepping up to play the game with the Green Knight. He decided his life was not more important than King Arthur. The Green Knight showed free-will by not killing Sir Gawain when he was supposed to. Le Morte d’Arthur began driven by fate. Arthur was fated to become king when he pulled that sword from the rock. Hamlet on the other hand does not accept his own fate and wants to make his own decisions on life. In the Duchess of Malfi, the Duchess breaks her fate path to be with someone she loved. Ferdinand, on the other hand, was born being stuck with fate do to something wrong with his brain that made him crazy. While some people believe

Many of the stories we have read over the course of this semester have dealt with the idea of free will and destiny. From the earliest recorded stories, we see man wrestling with the idea of having a choice. Free will is the ability to act at one's own discretion. In order to have free will, a person must have a choice. There must be at least two options for them to decide between.