Motherfucker. This word has been used as an insult for hundreds of years, implying the receiver of such an insult has partaken in one of the most taboo actions of all time: having sex with one’s own mother. In Sophocles’ Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex, the protagonist does just that. In the play, characters such as Laius and Oedipus are presented with their destinies as if it were fact. However, the same work supports the idea that destiny can be overcome by no longer running from problems faced before them but approaching them as only one of many possibilities. Oedipus and Laius believed in the essential part of destiny as the operator that controls and decides their lives. Though, if for instance, Oedipus who was so prideful of himself to outthink fate, why did he so desperately run off from Corinth when it was revealed to him? Oedipus is King of Thebes, gaining fame for answering the riddle to kill the Sphinx that was destroying the city. As a reward he assumed place as King and married the widowed Queen, Jocasta. …show more content…
He attacks the stature of which his brother-in-law Creon is coming from and thus has his wife reaffirm that prophecies aren’t true. “And Laius be slain by his own son. Such was the prophet 's horoscope. O king, Regard it not. Whate 'er the god deems fit, To search, himself unaided will reveal,” (722-725). Another instance when this prophecy has been blatantly shown to both the audience and Oedipus. He could no longer fight this prophecy but he would cling onto any glimmer of hope, being told by a Corinthian messenger that his ‘dad’ had passed away and would want him to claim the throne. After his prophecy being learned in Corinth, and then by another prophet in Teiresias, and lastly this instance of his own wife saying it, he needed to give up running away from the problem and admitting it so his family can prosper and so can the plagued citizen of