Fate and freedom in oedipus
For centuries, the struggle between fate and the freedom of the human will has been a point of discontent among many scholars in the area of philosophy and Greek literature. In the works of men like Homer, Euripides, and Sophocles there is an emphasis on the role of prophetic beings and the inability of humans to overcome this obstacle. People are manipulated much to the delight of the gods without any hope of staving off disaster. As seen in Sophocles' timeless tragedy Oedipus Rex, the title character appears to be a victim to his own destiny, hopelessly entangled in a web woven by superior beings. I am going to argue that despite the propensity to fall into the convenient thought that human beings are simply subject to the will of something greater that there is a definite tendency to allow for acts of free will throughout Greek literature. Since I believe Oedipus is the most complete embodiment of this struggle I will focus my analysis on his character. According to Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, fate is defined as "an inevitable and often adverse outcome, condition, or end". When I originally read Oedipus Rex and met the character of Oedipus for the first time I presumed that Sophocles believed strongly in the idea of
The characters act out of fear that the prophecies will come true. They believed that what the oracle said was going to happen and acted so as to avoid it. They are at the mercy of fallible prophetic beings which is an oxymoron in its own right. However, I see too many holes in this idea of fate. It is for this reason that I believe there is a strong element of free will in Oedipus Rex. When an oracle proclaimed that their son would grow up to murder his father and marry his mother, the couple gave Oedipus to an old shepherd and instructed him to leave the infant on a hill to perish. Many see the core of the tragedy in his unavoidable demise. In fact, Jocasta initially celebrates when she believes that the prophecy was false. The torture, in which he endures, both physically and emotionally, is enough to make even the most stable individual rethink their life. To see a great man like Oedipus fall to the depths he has reached by the end of the play is truly tragic. The oracle prophesized the most frightening situation imaginable: that he would kill his father and marry his mother. You can not logically reconcile the idea of inescapable outcomes with the attempt to avoid said results. With that being said, the question arises "If there is no such thing as fate, why does the outcome match the oracle's prophecy proclaimed earlier?" The answer lies in the motivations of the character involved. In conclusion, although fate might be a convenient explanation for events, it is free will that places Oedipus in the situations he faces. Oedipus represents to me those of us that are driven to failure by an attachment to something detrimental.
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