Theme Of Fate In Oedipus Rex

Oedipus is a tragic tall of a man trying to avoid his fate, and instead running right towards it. When he was young Oedipus found out he was destined to kill his father and marry his mother. In an attempt to negate the prophecy, he leaves his parents only to kill is father along the road thus unknowingly setting up the groundwork for him to marry his mother. The town of Thebes, where his parents ruled, was hounded by a sphinx that devoured anyone who could not answer her question. Oedipus challenges the beast, answers the riddle, and defeats her. The story of the Sphinx adds several layers of irony to the story through the riddle she gives, the hidden fate in her death, and

At first, Oedipus is seen as a man of mighty feats; however, in the end, the remembrance of his great acts is overcome by the infamy of how he killed his father and married his mother. At the beginning of Socrates’ play, the priest cries out on the subject of the mighty acts the king, Oedipus’ has done; surely the man

Answering the Sphinx entered Oedipus into a whole new world, he was no longer the lowly traveler getting pushed out of the road, but, instead, he was king. That is where he got his big start, were his path to greatness began, or so he thought. Instead, it was only one more stepping stone to his ultimate downfall. “Oedipus: Mock me for that, go on, and you’ll reveal my greatness. Tiresias: Your great good fortune ,true, it was your ruin.”(Meyer). By answering the sphinx’s riddle, “Because Oedipus saved Thebes from the Sphinx, he was granted the Theban kingdom and Jocasta (wife of Laius and his own mother) as his wife”(The Hutchinson).Oedipus thus sealed his destiny. While killing the stranger in the road started Oedipus on his way to fulfill his destiny, answering the Sphinx’s riddle was the final nail in his coffin. With that one triumph, came his ultimate