King Oedipus is indeed a tragedy. According to Aristotle’s theory of tragedy, King Oedipus was the best illustration as it clearly depicted the downfall of a heroic king who saved Thebes from the calamity of Sphinx to committing patricide. King Oedipus’s unwitting sins was the cause of his ruin, due to his unwillingness to accept his fate. When all the truth and questions that King Oedipus seeks for was answered, it led him to destruction such that he gouges his eyes out and intent to be exiled from Thebes. King Oedipus’s suffering has thus, return harmony to it citizens and arouses reader’s pity and fear.
This report will study King Oedipus tragic in relation to determinism and agency.
At the birth of Oedipus, an oracle prophesied that Oedipus would need to be killed as “he was destined to kill his father, and to become his own mother’s husband” (Page 23). Unable to commit infanticide, Oedipus’s parents, Laius and Jocasta ordered a shepherd to leave the infant Oedipus on the mountain to die and gore his feet to prevent him from seeking safety. However, the infant Oedipus was rescued by a servant of Polybus and was raised in Corinth by the King and Queen of Corinth. When Oedipus grew older, he came to heard about the dreadful prophecy of him by a minister of Apollo, and thus “At this I fled away, putting the stars between me and Corinth, never to see home again, that such horror should ever come to pass.” (Page 47)
Based on the paragraph above, the act free will can be