The Victim of Fate in Oedipus Rex
The question has been raised as to whether Oedipus was a victim of fate or of his own actions. This essay will show that Oedipus was a victim of fate, but he was no puppet because he freely and actively sought his doom, although he was warned many times of the inevitable repercussions of his actions.
When first considering this topic, I speculated that maybe it was the destiny of Oedipus to suffer, but a friend asked me to explain why Oedipus, in the act of gouging his eyes out, cries explicitly:
No more, no more shall you look on the misery about me,
The horrors ...
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...ology of the Great Myths and Epics. Illinois: Passport Books, 1988.
Segal, Charles. Oedipus Tyrannus: Tragic Heroism and the Limits of Knowledge. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1993.
Sophocles. "Oedipus Rex." An Introduction to Literature, 11th ed.Eds. Sylvan Barnet, et al. New York: Longman, 1997. 800-836.
...ion Jubilee, and moving to the successful invasion by the Allies in Sicily and moving into Italy. Many lessons were learned and applied to this invasion, with the early planning, the secrecy of the mission, the early bombardment, and prepping of the battlefield, and the “violence of action” with the invasion all along the coast of Normandy proved to make Operation Overlord a success despite not achieving all the initial objectives.
The battle started when the British sixth air born division went in at ten minutes after midnight. They were the first troops to go into action. The second attack was by the eighty second in the one hundred and first division of air born attacks. They were less successful than the first division.
The prelude to the Battle of the Bulge began on a winter day in mid-December of 1944. Three powerful German divisions, were the last German offensives in the west at that time during World War II. They began after the Normandy invasion in June 1944. Allied had forces swept rapidly through France but became stalled along the German border earlier that year in September. On December 16, 1944 taking advantage of the weather, which kept the Allied aircraft on the ground, the Germans launched a counteroffensive through the semi-mountainous and heavily-forested Ardennes region in Germany, and advanced 31 miles into Belgium and northern Luxembourg near the Meuse River. Their goal was to trap four allied armies, divide the Americans and the British to force negotiated peace along the western front, and retake the vital seaport of Antwerp in Belgium. Thinking the Ardennes was the least likely spot for a German offensive, American staff commander chose to keep the thin line, so that manpower might concentrate on offensives north and south of the Ardennes known as the "bulge" in the Allied lines. These American lines were thinly held by three divisions in the Allied Army and part of a forth division, while fifth division was making a local attack and the sixth division was in reserve. Division sectors were more than double the width of normal defensive fronts, therefore there were more men scattered along a larger area. The German advance was halted near the Meuse River in late December. Even though the German Offensive achieved total surprise, nowhere did the American troops give ground without a fight. Within three days, the determined American stand and the arrival of powerful reinforcements insured that the ambitious German goal was far beyond reach. In snow and sub-freezing temperatures the Germans fell short of their interim objective- to reach the rambling Meuse River on the edge of the Ardennes. But they managed to avoid being cut off by an Allied Pincer movement.
relieve their sorely-pressed armies in the East. The Dieppe raid also served as a risky opportunity for
Sophocles. Oedipus Tyrannus. Eds. Luci Berkowitz, and Theodore F. Brunner. New York: Norton, 1970. 30-77. Print.
The deception operation of D-Day was an endeavor that ensured the victory of World War II with the greatest seaborne invasion force the world has ever known. By this time in 1944, Hitler’s forces had gained all of Europe and began to invade Russia. The invasion of D-Day was the decisive battle for the Allies to liberate Europe by creating the second front. The Germans expected this invasion. However, the idea of deception from the Allies was to make the Germans believe the Allies were taking the shortest distance to Pas de Calais when they were truly landing along the Normandy beaches. “Operation Overlord” landed a physical and psychological blow in which the Germans would never recover.
“The liberation of Europe from years of German control was the most detrimental part of successful Allied outcome. The London Controlling Section (LCS) devised an elaborate two-part plan called Operation Fortitude that SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force) helped
To the first-time reader of Sophocles’ tragedy, Oedipus Rex, it seems that the gods are in complete domination of mankind. This essay will seek to show that this is not the case because the presence of a tragic flaw within the protagonist is shown to be the cause of his downfall.
The 1944 Allied landing at Normandy met a strong, networked German defense that initially disrupted the timing of the invasion, slowed down the Allied advance, and inflicted extensive casualties. The German shore defenses were a result of extensive preparations that began when the German High Command appointed Field Marshal Rommel to defend the western European coast. Rommel believed the best strategy against an Allied inv...
Sophocles. "Oedipus Rex." An Introduction to Literature, 11th ed.Eds. Sylvan Barnet, et al. New York: Longman, 1997.
Hitler once again used the Blitzkrieg technique with German tanks and air power leading the attack. There were three powerful German armies, made up of over 3 million men which moved into Russia.
The date for invasion was decided in Washington in May 1943, but due to some difficulties it had been postponed till June 5. June 5th was the unalterable date for the invasion to take place. The troops and the officers had been stationed in barracks for month and they were getting quite anxious to get the invasion over with. On June 5th due to bed weather the invasion had been postponed again, some ships were already on the way and had-to be recalled. The film shows the meeting that General Eisenhower (Supreme commander of the Allied forces who was in charge of the operation Overlord) held to decide to whether of not go on
Regal, Charles. Oedipus Tyrannus: Tragic Heroism and the Limits of Knowledge. New York: Twayne, 1993.
Sophocles. “Oedipus the King.” Trans. David Grene. World Masterpieces. James Corcoran et al. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2003. 433-470. Print.
The issues of destiny, predetermination, and foreknowledge play a part in proving Oedipus as innocent or guilty. Oedipus embodies the human condition in just this paradoxical relation to both open and closed conceptions of life. Segal (2001) suggests he is both free and determined, of able to choose and helpless in the face of choices that he has already made in the past or circumstances like those of his birth, over which he had no power of choice. Segal suggests Oedipus does not have a tragic flaw, this view rests on a misunderstanding of Aristotle and is a moralising way out of the disturbing questions that the plane means to ask. Sophocles refuses to give so easy in answer to the problem of suffering.