How Does Jocasta Use Crossroad Motifs In Oedipus The King

In Sophocles’s play Oedipus the King, he employs crossroad motifs in order to prove the unavoidable nature of the Gods’ will. This inevitability regarding the Gods’ will is demonstrated when the anti-prophecy Jocasta speaks with Oedipus about a prophecy that never came true, she informs, “Laius was fated to die by the hand of his son (...) Well, Laius, so the story goes, was killed by foreign robbers at a place where three highways meet” (41). Jocasta uses the word “fated” which insinuates the absence of choice and a predetermined existence. When using the word “fate” in reference to a prophecy of the Gods Jocasta implies that the words of the Gods are predetermined and unavoidable. Jocasta also employs the phrase “so the story goes”, this phrase demonstrates Jocasta’s doubts about the fact that Laius was killed by robbers.

There is not only one, but two Greek Gods known for watching over the crossroads; Hermes, the God of travel, and Hecate who is said to appear at crossroads with a hound at her side. The fact that Oedipus’s crossroad has three roads is also representative of Hecate and her three heads. Although Oedipus may in the moment believe that killing Laius was his own choice, just as would be choosing one of the crossroads to walk down, the Gods are still watching and forcing him down the road of fate. Furthermore, Oedipus’s predestiny appears as he begins to blame everything but himself for killing his father, he laments, “O three roads in the deep valley, you oak wood and you narrow pass where the three roads meet, you who soaked up my father’s blood, spilled by my hand - do you remember me?” (77). Once again in reference to the crossroad, the number three is always in use. The crossroad is never discussed without mentioning that there were three