Oedipus Rex King : Fate And Free Will

Many people believe that fate has planned out their lives and despite efforts on their part what was meant to happen, will eventually happen. This belief has been handed down over the centuries from some of the first civilizations, such as the Greeks. However, not all Greek citizens wanted destiny to take control of their lives. Some decided to choose freewill over the will of the gods. In Oedipus the King, Sophocles writes a cautionary tale meant to warn the doubters in Greek society that regardless of their beliefs in gods and prophecies, it is necessary to heed their warnings. Oedipus, Jocasta, and Laius are Sophocles’ characters that prove that escaping one’s fate is not possible, as each of their predicted fates is realized despite extensive efforts to thwart them.

The Odyssey is a good example of how fate and free will are interwoven.. In the Odyssey the gods are responsible for controlling many aspects of where the story goes, but the people still have to choose to go. The gods in the Odyssey are who held Odysseus captive for over eight years. They were responsible for his capture in the first place but then refused to let him go for 8 years. They were responsible for his capture and then refused to let him go for almost a decade. When they finally decided to let him go, they told kalypso, his captor. However Odysseus still had to chose to leave. Kalypso tried to keep him with her by offering immortality. “You would stay here, and guard this house, and be immortal” (Homer 267). Odysseus could have stayed but he chose to go. Some say that the gods knew Odysseus would not stay, and that is why they chose to let him go. However Knowledge of a fat does not take away from the fact Odysseus hose himself. That difference between having fate and accepting fate is free will.Once

Fate and free will played major parts in creating the characters and stories in many of the Greek mythologies and tragedies. The Greeks believes that the Gods and the Oracle's could predict a person's fate before or after birth, and that no one, even the Gods could intervene in that person's fate. They also believed that a person's or God could not create their own fate. This belief stems from the three fates: sisters, The Moirai or Fates were three sister deities, incarnations of destiny and life. Because of these three old women, fate could not be avoided or altered. As such with these stories, in the Iliad fate leads Achilles down his path of glory and his early demise, and cause Oedipus to sleep with his own mother and kill his father. Free will is the power of acting without constraint and fate; acting by one's own decisions. Even though Achilleus and Oedipus have fate, they both also have free will. For instance, Achilles has a double fate: if he goes home, he will live long without glory or if he stays at Troy, he will have lots of glory, but a short life. As such, in Sophocles Oedipus the King, when Oedipus was born he was fated to kill his father and lay with his mother, thought his ability of free will caused his fate to come true.

In our world today, fate and free will remains the biggest mystery of all; is everything we do controlled or do we have the freedom of choice? In the story "Oedipus the King" by Sophocles, the author uses the idea of fate and free will to explain the struggle of Oedipus's life. Fate and free will is explained as; fate is controlled by an outside supernatural force, and there is no way of controlling it. Free will is when each of us is responsible and controls all aspects of our own life. The author of "Oedipus the King" uses ironic devices to convey a tragic attitude toward the struggle of fate and free will.

Fate can be described as something being destined for someone, while free will is the ability to act at one’s own discretion without the use of fate or gods. Both fate and free-will is portrayed in the following plays Oedipus and Medea. In Oedipus, free will is expressed in certain situations that would later determine the outcome of what is destined to be for him. On the other hand, in Medea, she uses her fate to her advantage by using her free-will to exploit others in order to get to what’s destined for her. These two concepts came from greek mythology, where in Greece the mortals believed that the fates were controlled by the Gods. In order to find out their destiny they had to visit an oracle, which is a person who knows what fate is

Oedipus the King, was written by Sophocles between C.A.496-406B.C. In this play, Oedipus is a great example of Sophocles’ belief that fate will control a man’s life no matter how much free will exists.

Sophocles states that “Fate has terrible power. You cannot escape it by wealth or war. No fort will keep it out, no ships outrun it.” Fate derives from a Latin word, fatum, meaning that one’s future is predetermined. In Oedipus Rex, Sophocles unfolds the misfortune of a noble king who searches for knowledge. Evidently, Greek heroes like Oedipus are destined to rule, but are also bound to fall, therefore, he cannot alter his own fate. This tragic play proves that the power of fate is indeed stronger than one’s free will. Despite his attempts to fight his destiny, Oedipus can never outrun his fate. Regardless of his parents’ desperation to evade the predicted outcome, fate guides his journey for knowledge, leading to his destruction.

The events in Oedipus show that his past actions were determined by fate but what he did in Thebes, he did on his own free will. Oedipus’ actions, temper, impulsive nature and pride, as well as his erroneous judgment show free will. Personality is what decided their own free will. In Oedipus’ case, one of these was the desire for knowledge and truth about his life. This driving force in the play led to the truth of his origin. This ties in with his own aspect of free will. His free will is based on his drive for knowledge.

Neither his father, nor he could escape the tragedy, and fate showed how it could toy with the lives and emotions of mortal beings of the world. The characteristic traits of Oedipus lead his to follow the required sequence of events so as to make the prophecy come true to every word. Thus, it can be opined that his free will and choice blended with the fate that was ascribed to him by the Almighty right at the time of his birth. Thus, the undeniable transcendence of fate drives the course of the play by Sophocles. The prophecy that was made to King Laius and Jocasta is the greatest example that proves that no human effort can succeed in escaping fate.

Oedipus and Gilgamesh, both honorable and heroic men, were victims of tragic downfalls. In comparison, Sophocles, the playwright of Oedipus the King, and the author of Gilgamesh, were both significant writers of their respective generations and their legacy still continues today. These two stories made their masterpieces during different eras; Sophocles life concurred with the Golden Age of Greek tragedy and the epic of Gilgamesh took place sometime between 2800 and 2500 BC. Despite being born centuries apart, their works are similar in that they both describe and make the tragic downfalls of two distinguished men come to life. The demises of Gilgamesh and Oedipus can be compared and contrasted through their hunger for power and as well as

Does fate control us or do we control fate? This question has been posed many times by numerous amounts of people. The struggle with answering this question is that one cannot know their effect on fate if that fate is not known. To combat the difficulties of answering this question directly one can look toward philosophy and literature to approach this question in a more direct manner. Through the philosophic ideologies presented in Epictetus’s Handbook and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, one can observe how to approach fate and free will. In addition, looking at the literature of Macbeth, Oedipus The Tyrant, and Frederick Douglass’s Narrative, one can analyze examples of the relationship between fate and free will. Taking these philosophic approaches and applying them to literary examples, one can see how fate merely establishes events in life while free will allows for change to it.

The argument on whether freewill or fate governs the destinies of human beings has been the center piece of many great writings, such as the story of Oedipus Rex written by Sophocles. Oedipus was on top of the world living a life full of luxury and thought to be worthy of praise however he had a past unknown to him. For the past he knew was a complete lie everything he thought to be true was false. When his prophecy was revealed it set off a chain reaction of events out of freewill leading to his tragic downfall that he was too blind and arrogant to see. However these attempts at preventing his fate through actions of freewill ultimately led to his tragic fate becoming reality.

Sophocles is the author of the famous play, “Oedipus the King”. In case you did not know, Sophocles is from Greece. In Greek mythology there are three goddesses who preside over the birth and life of humans. Each person 's destiny was thought of as a thread spun, measured, and cut by the three Fates, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. In the story “Oedipus the King” fate and destiny was the main theme. On Google the definition of destiny is the events that will necessarily happen to a particular person or thing in the future. Fate is defined as, the development of events beyond a person 's control, regarded as determined by a supernatural power. In this paper I will be analyzing the story to help you understand the significance of destiny and fate to the story.

Laïos, the king was also not free of the curse. He had found about it first and was the person who ordered Iocaste to get rid of the child. This did not work, because the child was still alive, and Oedipus did end up killing his true father unknowingly. In Oedipus's conscience, he truly didn't think that he had killed his own father, because his father was far away. In the same way, Laios did not believe that it was his own son that had killed him. Rather, he thought that his pursuer was an angry highwayman, a stranger. All of these unproven solutions seemed very likely to avoid the curse, yet none of them worked.

Laius and Jocasta hear the fate that their son would kill Laius and marry Jocasta. In their free will, they decide to get him killed, and send a shepherd to send the baby on top of the mountain to have him killed. Although, fate overpowered and the baby survived, and the prophecy later became true. () Another part is when Oedipus leaves Corinth, a free will action in order to fall away from the prophecy of killing his father and marrying his mother. Although, what he did not know was that Merope and Polybus were not his blood parents, and he eventually does kill his blood father and marry his blood mother. This is showing how free will is limited, as characters did have the free will to do certain actions, but it is fate that truly conducts the play. “A son was born To us, but lived no more than three days. Yes, Laius pinned his ankles together and sent him Away to die on a distant, lonely mountain. Once he was there, no power could make him a murderer, Nor make Laius die at the hands of his son.” (95) Through free will, Jocasta thought that if her and Laius were to send Oedipus to the mountains through a servant to die, then the fate would be gone. Even though she could have killed Oedipus herself, she could not bare killing her own son. This ultimately lead to a change, and her free will action lead to fate, as Oedipus went on to survive and kill Laius and marry herself. This shows that even though Jocasta had the choice to kill Oedipus, fate in the end had the control of the action and free will was limited by