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Oedipus Rex Research Paper

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Destiny in Excess Some people spend their entire lives attempting to influence their futures, while others leave what is to come up to the unknown. But this “unknown” as some may call it, rather may be one’s destiny. In the tragedy Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, the character Oedipus struggles with the former, continually attempting to change the prophecy that he received when he was a baby. From the oracle, the prophecy stated that Oedipus would kill his father and marry his mother in a truly unfortunate plan for his future. So in attempts to escape this potential future, he does everything he can, or at least he thinks, to avoid what is to come. Unfortunately for Oedipus, he does realize that fate has a way of presenting itself at all costs. Sophocles successfully presents this tragedy in …show more content…

By highlighting these specific points throughout the story, Sophocles enables the audience to better understand the path in which Oedipus follows that leads to his tragic demise. One of the causal actions which demonstrates this theme is when Oedipus first leaves who he thinks to be his parents in attempts to avoid what the prophecy destined for him. After the oracle of Delphi told Oedipus his fate, Oedipus says, “I heard all this, and fled. And from that day Corinth to me was only in the stars Descending in that quarter of the sky, As I wandered farther and farther on my way To a land where I should never see the evil Sung by the oracle” (Sophocles 42-43). By Oedipus making the decision to flee the issues that are presented before him, he directly enhances the issue as he later discovers that the parents he fled were not his real parents after all. In accordance with Aristotle’s theory of tragedy, the arrangement of the causal actions that led to events inevitably led Oedipus to the fate he so strongly wished to

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