Oedipus Fate Vs Free Will Research Paper

Fate vs. Free Will

Sophocles uses the play Oedipus the King to show his own ideas of fate and how the universe works. These ideas are shown through the life of the main character Oedipus. In Oedipus the King Oedipus spends much of his life trying to avoid the fate that he was given. When he visits an Oracle he is told that he will kill his father and marry his mother. To escape this horrible fate he leaves the city of Corinth where he grew up and heads to Thebes. Unbeknownst to Oedipus his real mother and father (the King and Queen) live in Thebes so by going there he is just speeding up the prophecy. On his way to the new city he unknowingly kills his father king Laius in a fit of road rage. The city of Thebes is having a problem with a Sphinx that is flying around and eating people until they can solve a riddle. Oedipus manages to

This can be seen clearly by how no matter what Oedipus, King Laius, and Queen Jocasta do they only end up making things worse or delaying the inevitable. King Laius and Queen Jocasta’s attempt to kill Oedipus as a baby is a perfect example of Sophocles’s views. In Sophocles’s eyes the very moment that they decide to disregard the prophecy and have a child they have sealed their fate. Sophocles view on the universe and fate is a more traditional and old fashioned compared to the way that many people think in modern times. At the time that Sophocles’s plays were written the worship of the Greek Gods was common. In this time most people believed in oracles and prophets who were “chosen” by the gods and could see into the future. Sophocles’s view on fate was very likely influenced by these beliefs. Someone from that time period would have drastically different views on fate because at their time everyone believed in higher powers that control your life and that influence all your