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Freewill In Oedipus The King

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“There is no armour against fate.” JAMES SHIRLEY, The Contention of Ajax and Ulysses. This quote is very powerful because it tells us that you can’t protect yourself from fate no matter what it’s bound to happen and yet you have no control. In Oedipus his whole destiny and life is based on fate he tries to run away from it but it still manages to catch him in the three cross roads. Oedipus has no freewill because even when he’s trying to make choices he still advancing his fate. His fate is unstoppable. Fate is the development of events beyond a person's control, regarded as determined by a supernatural power. The definition specks to Oedipus because you had no control of his fate even though he’s a man of action that because fate is too powerful. …show more content…

Mariam father didn’t want to associate with his daughter likewise Laius left Oedipus because of the fate and because of the shame both parents had for their children. The outside has such a great influence on the certain actions taken by individuals. In Oedipus other characters like Shepard, Jocasta, and Tiresias have such a great role in proceeding the fate of Oedipus in destroying himself. The same goes for Mariam when characters like Rasheed, Laila, and Jalil. It’s not just character that influence fate it’s the environment like for example Oedipus was trying to defeat the sphinx and the plaque while Mariam was fighting war and terrorism. They differ because Oedipus finds out his fate while Mariam is just trying to live life no knowing what’s going to happen next. A thousand splendid suns responded more strongly to me because we live our life not knowing what’s going to happen next or what awaits us. As a women who believes in faith I don’t if I’ll be alive the next day or not while Oedipus it’s written for him and yet he knows. This topic of fate has being very controversial because people don’t know whether to believe it or not. Many religions believe that you have the free will to sin and that why you will punished in the afterlife while others believe its fate that gets you to

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The theme of confinement prevails throughout the play. He did whatever was in his limits, but, was still imprisoned by the fate that had already his destiny. Likewise, in the play “Oedipus the King”, the main message that the play portrayed was that no matter how much one try to run away from the fate, it always follows and even succeeds. The father of Oedipus, when found out that his own son was going to kill him, abandoned him, to prove the fate wrong.

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Oedipus fails to overcome the fate that has been set out for him by the gods. Though the case was different for him, as unlike Hamlet, Oedipus really couldn’t have done anything to avoid his fate of killing his father and marrying his mother. He believed that his real parents were in Corinth and the best way to avoid his fate was to flee the city. Unfortunately for Oedipus, what he had not known was that he was adopted, and his real parents lived in Thebes, the city he fled to. It was nearly impossible for him to have avoided his fate.

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Due to Oedipus being oblivious to his life story and his surroundings, his downfall could have perhaps been avoided in the end. This just shows how one wrong choice can bring a life filled with pain and misfortune. Oedipus was a very well-liked and admired individual; who was unfortunately never meant to live. After being born, his mother was warned that he could one day grow up to kill his own father; and at that moment it was decided that Oedipus needed to face death in order to prevent such an awful thing from taking place.

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Oedipus Rex Essay “Destiny guides us towards a specific, but without our willful participation we will not achieve our destiny” quoted Lee Bladon. Destiny or fate seems too often misused as a vague scapegoat. An unforeseen dramatic irony of sorts. Thanks to the Greek stories and plays of the classical age, fate is thought to be linked to the tragic outcome of an individual's life. In addition to the concept of fate and destiny included in The Oedipus Plays, high mindedness was not a tragedy gifted to Oedipus regardless of whether fate had any involvement.

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His destiny was predetermined by the gods who created him. He was born a child with many flaws and would be a child who would cause many wrongdoings. According to Apollo, he should be destroyed immediately and be thrown away in the mountains to be left to die. But, because of the kindness and pity from the Shepherd, Oedipus’ life is saved. This horrible prophecy made him an unwanted child with a sealed fate that scared both his mother and father right from the beginning.

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Both Oedipus in Oedipus the king and Job in the Hebrew Bible are faced with a test of critical decision-making, associated with divine struggle. Both the story of Job and Oedipus are faced with the divine controversy of fate and divine will. In both cases, the two characters are faced with the temptation of exercising their free will in the struggle for grace, power, and happiness. Fate refers to that which has been pre-determined by supernatural powers hence human subjects have no control over it. In contrast, free will entails the capacity that one has in choosing between the various courses of action available to them.

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Oedipus Rex is the story of the man who desperately tried to avoid his fate, and in that way, he fulfilled it. He was ignorant about signs and messages he was given, which ultimately led to his demise. He was blind to all warnings and prophecies he was given. Oedipus’s demise was fate, as hard as he tried to avoid it, he fell into it anyway.

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Consequences in life are caused by one’s own decisions and people learn from these consequences. In Oedipus the King, a play written by Sophocles, tragedy, downfall or disaster that one faces, builds up with the character’s incorrect decisions. While fate alone seems to be the factor that brought Oedipus to his own downfall, Oedipus’ decisions also contributed to his consequence and this helped him gain some self-knowledge which fulfills Aristotle’s requirements for a tragic hero. Decisions are key factors that collaborate with fate to bring Oedipus to his downfall. In the very first scene, Oedipus was already the king of Thebes and he questions Creon, his brother-in law, about the past king, Laius, who was killed accidentally by Oedipus

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In Oedipus the King, written by Sophocles and translated by Robert Fagles, there is a prophecy that Oedipus will marry his own mother and kill his father. Queen Jocasta and King Laius try to avoid this prophecy by abandoning Oedipus. Oedipus lives and hears the same prophecy as a young adult and leaves his adopted parents, who he thinks are his biological parents. In the end, Oedipus marries his mom and killed his dad, proving the prophecy to become true. In Oedipus the King, free will exists but the outcome of the free will, will always be prophecy.

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The ending of Oedipus conveys the message that one cannot escape his fate and the free will he exhibits will in the end be worthless because everyone has an assigned fate. Oedipus himself is a great example of this when he saw the oracle it “flashed before my eyes a future great with pain, terror, disaster”(Sophocles, 870). This was when Oedipus first found out about his fated future and upon hearing that he was deeply saddened so he tried to escape his fate which only lead him to fulfill it. At the end after he realizes that the oracle was right,, Oedipus says, “I stand revealed at last -- cursed in my birth, cursed in marriage, cursed in the lives I cut down with these hands!” (Sophocles, 1310), this was the moment that Oedipus realized that all of his precautions of leaving Corinth to escape his fate just led him right to it.

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In many people’s eyes, it is seen that fate is something that one can not escape. In Oedipus Rex, by Sophocles, Oedipus gives a speech to the citizens of Thebes, about the murder of their previous leader, Laius. And in this speech, he explains the hardship that the murderer will have to eventually face. In Oedipus’s speech from Oedipus Rex, Sophocles uses the literary device of dramatic irony to develop the central idea that fate is destined to happen, and can possibly bring more intensified consequences when avoided. If one tries to escape their fate, the conflicts that occur can be more severe than they were supposed to be. One can infer that what Oedipus is stating will eventually happen to him in the end of the play, if he is classified as the murderer.

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The destiny that Oedipus was attempting to avoid, was the destiny that he was also fulfilling. Fate is defined as a destined outcome; nothing can alter that no matter what is tried. Anyway, it was too late for Oedipus to do anything about it, for the many factors that contributed to his death were irreversible and dormant until the very ironically tragic end. Oedipus tried to master fate and it ultimately mastered him.

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