Oedipus The King The Concept Of Fate Came Up All Through The Play

Equally important to the role of fate in bringing about the downfall of Oedipus is the human flaw of arrogance that clouded Oedipus’ intellect to reason. One can ultimately see this human flaw in the beginning of the play as he says “Here I am myself – you all know me, the world knows my fame: I am Oedipus” (p 262, line 7-9). One day Oedipus heard someone say that he wasn’t his father’s son in which bothered him greatly and triggered his curiosity in whether Polybus and Merope were his biological parents. So, as a way to figure out his identity and true origins, he left to Delphi to see the Oracle. However, instead of answering Oedipus’ answer of who his true parents were, the Oracle told him of his fate that “You are fated to couple with your mother, you will bring a breed of children into the light no man can bear to see – you will kill your father the one who gave you life” (p. 297, lines 873-875). Hence, his arrogance is clearly showed as he disregards the prophecy, similar to the actions of Laius and Jocasta by escaping it, as he abandons Corinth and sets forth to a place where he “would never see the shame of all those oracles come true” (p. 297, lines 879-880). His flaw of

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

Which is ironic again because Oedipus fled his Corinth in hope that his prophecies of killing his father and marrying his mother would never happen not know who his actual parents was. When he left his home city of Corinth on his journey he kills a caravan of presumed low-class travelers. Which was his faith in killing his father but in his mind he is thinking his father is King of Corinth. Oedipus is ignorant and does not try to learn and understand his past, but fate is fate so how do

Oedipus-Rex was filled with many impulsive, difficult decisions; much like when Jocasta and her husband at the time decided to attempt to murder their son, Oedipus. The prophet, Tiresias, came to Jocasta and Laius and warned them of Laius’ fate. Tiresias told Laius, former King of Thebes, that his son would ultimately be the death of him and his power. He and his wife, Jocasta, devised a sinister plan to “eliminate” the chance of this prophecy coming true. Shackling the newborn’s ankles together and leaving him to die on top of a mountain called Cithaeron. But as everyone in Thebes believes “fate works in magical ways”. Oedipus, the newborn at the time, was led by something mysterious back to Thebes to solve a riddle, kill his father and become the new king by marrying Jocasta and solving the Sphinx’s riddle. This put Oedipus exactly where fate wanted him. Later causing him to dig deeper into his past when things just don’t seem to add up. “Parents? Wait! Who was I born from after all?” Oedipus asked of Tiresias which started everything. After catching wind of this new investigation into Oedipus’ past and the acquiring of all these new details Jocasta finally connected the dots. Oedipus was the son she thought

In Oedipus the King, by Sophocles, the idea of fate and destiny is brought to the forefront of the play. The idea of fate is incredibly prevalent in the play and drives a significant amount of the plot. The most important example of fate in the play is the prophecy that Oedipus is doomed to follow. The prophecy that Oedipus is supposed to fall victim to is revealed to the audience by Teiresias, a paraphrasing of the prophecy is “he’ll have no joy of the discovery: blindness for sight and beggary for the riches his exchange, he shall go journeying to a foreign country tapping his way before him with a stick. He shall be proved father and brother both to his own children in his house; to her that gave him birth, a son and husband both; a fellow sower in his father’s bed with that same father that he murdered” (Sophocles, 504-513). Even though, many of the seeds of this

As the play proceeds and Oedipus is passed from hand to hand, he eventually ends up in the home of King Polybus and Queen Merope were he grows into a young man being fed the lie that they were his true parents. When Oedipus is told the prophecy that he will kill his father he flees in an attempt to avoid the murder. However, as fate would have it he ran to a crossroad where he fulfilled the prophecy killing King Laius, his true father. While Oedipus continues to run he meets Jocasta, his birth mother, whom he eventually marries and has children with. If Jocasta had kept Oedipus as a baby and raised him or just killed him herself there would have been no chance of the prophecy coming true.

Ever since the birth of Oedipus, his birth parents, King Laius and Queen Jocasta, learn of the prophecy from the oracle that Oedipus will kill his father and have his mother’s hand in marriage. In an attempt to avert their destiny, King Lauis leaves his son for dead: “An oracle came to Laius one fine day… and it declared that doom would strike him down at the hands of his son… my son – he wasn’t three days old and the boy’s father fastened his ankles, had a henchman fling him away on a barren, trackless mountain” (784-793). Laius and Jocasta presumed that they have escaped their destiny, but the prophecy was much still alive. Fast forward, Oedipus grows up and also learns of his fate and tries to avoid it as well by leaving who he thinks are his biological parents to a different city, where his actual parents are. Oedipus clarifies, “Apollo told me once – it is my fate – I must make love with my own mother, shed my father’s blood with my own hands.

Large-scale questions of such ideas are raised in Sophocles’ play, “Oedipus the King”—a story that deals with the tragic hero, Oedipus, and his demise. Oedipus progresses through the play struggling against his own wicked destiny: the prophecy that declares that he would kill his father and marry his mother. Ultimately, Oedipus fulfills this prophecy; in fact, he had completed his fate without his own knowing and before the play even begins. Despite his belief that he was fighting against his prophesized destiny, Oedipus was ironically fulfilling it, and he slowly brings about his own downfall. He becomes a victim of his own fate. In this regard, “Oedipus the King” explores a terrifying concept: Oedipus never had free will—a puppet in every sense to the higher beings that decided his ending for him.

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.

In the Greek tragedy Oedipus the King written by Sophocles, the reader learns about the downfall of the main character Oedipus, which is the result of his predetermined fate and his own personal issues with anger and pride. It all began with a prophecy that an oracle revealed to Oedipus’ parents. It was a shocking, two-fold prophecy which revealed how Oedipus, the king’s first son, would commit murder and incest. Once Oedipus was born, King Laius and Queen Jocasta of Thebes abandoned their infant. Oedipus would never truly know either of his parents. They would remain strangers for years. It was not until Oedipus encountered both of his parents separately, later in his life, that the reader learns how he sealed his own fate and the prophecy was fulfilled.

In the end, however, Oedipus’ hubris ways led to his tragic reality. He lost his wife. He lost his eyesight. He lost his children. He lost his kingship. With all his confidence and his persistence, he uncovered the riddles of his life and found out that he was the boy born of Laius and Jocasta who was the subject of the prophecy. His intelligence, pride and confidence led to this discovery, which resulted in him losing everything that he had which in the end he fulfilled his fate.

Oedipus did not have a fair start in life. His father, Laius, heard prophecy that Oedipus would one day kill his father and sleep with his mother. In order to prevent this, Laius gave Oedipus to a shepherd to be killed. Fortunately, through a string of events, Oedipus's life was saved, and he even went on to become the honored king of Thebes. Despite this feat, Oedipus still managed to make several decisions that ultimately fulfilled the original prophecy told to Laius, and inevitably sealed Oedipus?s fate.

Fate played an important part in the plays and literature of the Greeks as is shown in Sophocles' play

Oedipus’s life and destiny was said to be set by the god’s, but together with his parent’s lies and his own ignorance, he brought upon his downfall foretold so long ago. It was only when he was born that a prophecy of Oedipus, who was to kill his father and marry his mother. Terrified and without much thought of the consequences, Iokaste and Laius abandoned the child to die. Oedipus did not die. Instead he became a strong and well respected prince, who believed his real parents were king and queen of Corinth. Oedipus’s adoptive parents kept him in the dark about his true identity. For this reason, when ignorant Oedipus hears of his prophecy, he runs away terrified. Ironically, on his journey away from home, he encounters his real father, Laius King of Thebes, which he kills due to an argument. Moreover, he goes on to become King of Thebes and husband of Iokaste, his biological mother. So, without realizing, the fate that Oedipus wanted to impede so badly occurs right before his eyes, showing that fate “lies within Apollo’s competence/As it is his concern” (Oed.

Oedipus is a boy who was left on the mountains to die by his own parents, the King and Queen of Thebes, due to a tragic prophecy told by the Oracles of Delphi. The prophecy declares that the boy would be destined to murder his father, king Louis of Thebes and then incest with Louis’s wife, Jocasta, Oedipus mother. After being abandoned on the mountain by his wicked parents, a shepherd found this little child and takes him to the King and Queen. King Polybus and Queen Merope of Corinth decided that since they don't have a child of their own, it would