Fate vs Free Will - A Close Look at Sophocles' King Oedipus (Oedipus Rex) In the play King Oedipus, Sophocles suggests that while we have free will, this translates into little control over one's lives, as fate cannot be escaped. At the end of the play, Oedipus has been totally destroyed &nd...

The story of Oedipus, one of the first examples of a literary tragic hero, is of a man plunged suddenly from prosperity and power to ruin and disrepute. We see him at the height and the depth of his worldly fortunes. Oedipus, whom in the first scene the Priest calls "the first of men," to whom all...