The Handmaid's Tale And Free Will Essay

Having free will is a key component to an enjoyable life, without it life becomes boring and predictable. Both Oedipus by Sophocles and The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood touch on the topic of free will, the main characters have moments of free will but when they do it is to an extent. The contrast between the two texts is that Oedipus has the message of not being able to escape fate, whereas, The Handmaid’s Tale has a more complex approach to free will. Although free will is limited in both texts, the little bit that the characters have is vital for their happiness and to their outcomes in the stories.

In both texts the characters have free will but to an extent. In Oedipus, Oedipus thinks he has free but it is limited by his prophecy.

In Oedipus, Oedipus leaved his old kingdom as an act of freewill to try and escape his prophecy. “I heard all that and ran. I abandoned Corinth, from that day on I gauged its landfall only by the stars, running, always running toward someplace where I would never see the shame of all those oracles come true”(Sophocles, 875), this shows how when he found out about his prophecy he left his city out of an act of free will to attempt to escape his fate. In the moment Oedipus thought that leaving his kingdom would be a positive move because it would help him escape his eventual outcome. There is a similar theme in The Handmaid’s Tale, in the novel Offred’s relationship with Nick is an act of free will and rebellion. Offred has many limits and rules governing her life and does not have much free will but there is a shift in the story when “He puts his hand on my arm, pulls me against him, his mouth on mine, what else comes from such denial?”(Atwood, pg 113), this is when Offred first does something big that is against the rules and is as symbol of her expressing her free will. By acting out of free will Offred positively changes her life when she starts her relationship with Nick and he is one of the few things that makes her happy, in the end it leads to her getting saved too. Both of these examples show how free will can make a persons life more interesting because each action a person takes

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. After Oedipus’s realization settles in he feels horrible, this could have to do with the fact that he realized his entire life was governed by the oracle and he had no free will to change it. The Handmaid’s Tale goes the opposite route, the message that Atwood is trying to convey is that one does have free will and one can escape their fate. This is shown when Nick comes with the eyes to take away Offred, Offred thinks that she is going to either be killed or sent to the colonies but instead “He comes over, close to me, whispers. ‘It’s all right. It’s