Sarah Bourgeois
Professor Minkel
World Literature
27 November 2016
Oedipus the King by Sophocles:
Victim of Fate
Oedipus the King by Sophocles is basically a twisted version of Hamlet except Oedipus does not consciously plot to kill his father like the young prince Hamlet does. Oedipus unwittingly kills his father, King Laios, because he thinks that he, and the city he resides in, will be cursed if he does not. Then, finds out that he was cursed from the moment he was born and that his lover, Jokasta, is also his mother. However, the role of free will in Oedipus the King is almost nonexistent. If one pays close attention to the events in the story it becomes evident that Oedipus is simply the victim of fate and none of his actions were made with the intent to fulfill his terrible destiny.
Oedipus and Thebes were cursed because of a mistake that he made and he was told that the only way to lift the curse was to kill King Laios’ murderer, who was supposedly the source of all of these issues. He had no idea that the old man that he killed at the crossroads was also his father, and that he was the true killer of the King of Thebes. He only knew that he didn’t want the Thebes to be cursed for the rest of his life because of the King’s killer. “This won’t be on behalf of distant kin—I’ll banish this plague for my own sake” (Sophocles, 157-158). He wasn’t thinking about the people who were also suffering from this curse on the land, rather he was thinking about his own vengeance for the things that King Laios’ killer brought onto the land by his foolish decision to kill the King. However, it was truly Oedipus’ accidental murder of the old man that ultimately brought about the terrible curse on Thebes because he was the true killer. Therefore, there was no free will in this act of murder, if you can even call it a murder since there was no premeditation. “Oedipus himself is largely a negative example,[of free will] losing his reasoned way by accepting inadequate evidence of his guilt of incest and, via that charge, of parricide [due to fate]” (Fosso, 50).
Putting aside the fact that Oedipus didn’t know what he was doing, there are several other factors that help to prove that fate was in control of Oedipus’ actions. For example, he was destined from birth to kill his father and marry his mother. The oracle herself said that this would come to pass no matter what. That’s why his parents tried so hard to get rid of him before he became a man and the prophecy they both feared so much came to pass. When confronted with the truth, Oedipus continued to deny it. So, Tiresias said the one thing that he knew Oedipus would lose sleep over, the one thing that he wouldn’t understand until it was too late. “I seem a fool to you but the parents who gave you birth thought that I was wise” (Sophocles, 529-30). Tiresias brought up his true birth in the hopes of getting him to question his own innocence and face the facts. However, Oedipus continued to deny it. It is possible that fate was in control of this disbelief so that he would not know that he was fulfilling his destiny until it was too late.
Oedipus the King by Sophocles is a terrible example of free will because there is none in it. Oedipus is ruled by this idea of destiny, prophecy and will of the gods. None of his actions were truly his own. He was prompted from birth to kill his father and marry his mother but ultimately, he still blamed himself for something he had no control of. He didn’t know it was his father that he killed or his mother that he loved until it was too late. That is hardly his fault.
Works Cited
Fosso, Kurt. "Oedipus Crux: Reasonable Doubt in "Oedipus the King.” College Literature 39.3 (2012): 26-60. Academic Search Complete. Web. 18 Nov. 2016.
Sophocles. “Oedipus the King.” The Norton Anthology of Western Literature. Gen. ed. Stephen Greenblatt. 9th ed. Vol. 1. New York: Norton: 2012. Print. 699-705.