Free Will: An Example in Sophocle´s Oedipus Rex Essay

Often one wonders whether their choices are consequential. Are we destined to an irrevocable destination or do we choose the path for our life? Oedipus Rex is a play that deals with this question. As a Greek tragedy, sadness ultimately is its end. However, the conclusion can be seen as foreordained or a result of poor choices. Sophocles probes his audience to think about their own life through the story of an unfortunate man. Oedipus Rex is established upon the foundation of fate versus free will.

In all likelihood, the fate of Oedipus would have been much different if his parents had decided to accept fate, rather than control it. Instead, their disregard of the prophecy and actions of escaping it had influenced in fulfilling it.

In Oedipus the King, by Sophocles, the idea of fate and destiny is brought to the forefront of the play. The idea of fate is incredibly prevalent in the play and drives a significant amount of the plot. The most important example of fate in the play is the prophecy that Oedipus is doomed to follow. The prophecy that Oedipus is supposed to fall victim to is revealed to the audience by Teiresias, a paraphrasing of the prophecy is “he’ll have no joy of the discovery: blindness for sight and beggary for the riches his exchange, he shall go journeying to a foreign country tapping his way before him with a stick. He shall be proved father and brother both to his own children in his house; to her that gave him birth, a son and husband both; a fellow sower in his father’s bed with that same father that he murdered” (Sophocles, 504-513). Even though, many of the seeds of this

Neither his father, nor he could escape the tragedy, and fate showed how it could toy with the lives and emotions of mortal beings of the world. The characteristic traits of Oedipus lead his to follow the required sequence of events so as to make the prophecy come true to every word. Thus, it can be opined that his free will and choice blended with the fate that was ascribed to him by the Almighty right at the time of his birth. Thus, the undeniable transcendence of fate drives the course of the play by Sophocles. The prophecy that was made to King Laius and Jocasta is the greatest example that proves that no human effort can succeed in escaping fate.

The overall theme of Oedipus The King is free will being tainted by one’s fate. With the Gods choosing to give Oedipus the awful fate of patricide and incest, his own free will was ultimately useless, almost used as a taunting in the form of the non existent chance of him escaping his destiny. The play conveys the thought that man truly has no free will, and he is “merely a puppet in the hands of his Gods, they pull the strings that make him dance” (Dodds

“‘Tragedy is an imitation, not of men, but of action and life, of happiness and misery’” (Milch 12). This statement by Aristotle reflects the ideas portrayed in the play Oedipus Rex. Written by Sophocles, Oedipus Rex is a play which combines tragedy with irony to tell a story of a noble king who falls short of his greatness. The play was written around 430 BC and originally intended for an Athenian audience. They considered Sophocles their most successful playwright and consequently, his works continued to be valued highly throughout the Greek world long after his death. A closer examination of this play is needed to see just why it has been regarded as Sophocles’ masterpiece and the greatest of all Greek tragedies (Milch 16, 36).

To make a good choice you have to have knowledge. Oedipus was never given a chance to make a choice for himself. In the story Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, you see that knowing the truth can prevent people from making naive mistakes. If Oedipus was given knowledge then he could have prevented Laois from dying, there would have never been a plague on the city and he would never have been exiled from Thebes. After Oedipus found out about the prophecy he left who his so called parents were to protect them.

The argument on whether freewill or fate governs the destinies of human beings has been the center piece of many great writings, such as the story of Oedipus Rex written by Sophocles. Oedipus was on top of the world living a life full of luxury and thought to be worthy of praise however he had a past unknown to him. For the past he knew was a complete lie everything he thought to be true was false. When his prophecy was revealed it set off a chain reaction of events out of freewill leading to his tragic downfall that he was too blind and arrogant to see. However these attempts at preventing his fate through actions of freewill ultimately led to his tragic fate becoming reality.

“Antigone” by Sophocles is a tragic novel in which a young girl is condemned to death for doing what was right. In attempt to bury her dead brother she is caught and sent to a cave as punishment made from the King of Thebes, Creon. In a sense you could say that there was a curse set upon her because of her father’s fate. Her father Oedipus was destined to marry his mother and kill his father and the entire time he thought he was avoiding the prophecy, he was actually fulfilling it. Same thing happened with Antigone but in her case it was more like free will rather fate because she chose to bury her brother.

The philosophical debate of whether human life is governed by fate or individual free will is the subject of a lot of world literature. People in ancient Greece often thought that their fate was already set from birth and there is nothing they can do to change it. In Oedipus by Sophocles, from birth Oedipus was doomed to to kill his father and marrying his mother according to a prophecy from Apollo. The parents tried to stop the prophecy by killing Oedipus but he survived. The life of Oedipus demonstrates this debate of free will versus fate.

In the Merriam-Webster dictionary, free will is defined as the ability to make choices without being controlled by God or fate. In the story Oedipus the King by Sophocles, Oedipus has to deal with his fate as determined by a prophecy that describes how he would kill his father and sleep with his mother. Oedipus could have defied fate and followed his own free will and survived this story without his tragic ending.

The main character in “ The Oedipus Plays Of Sophocles” written by Sophocles is a story about the dreadful fate of Oedipus. In the story Oedipus willingly kills his father thinking he was just an ordinary man, but this event sealed his fate because the Gods warned Oedipus of this event but he refused to believe it. These plays show that fate is unchangeable, and sometimes fate is disguised as free will. Fate is unchangeable.

I find Oedipus to be a victim of fate rather than having free will. “()”. Free will could be seen to be more of an illusion than a reality. People and society like to make you think you have control over your own life while in you really do not. While it seems he could have tried harder maybe vowing to never sleep with a women or to never kill a man but is what the play wanted you to think (). He was born damned, to suffer due to his given destiny. Man is to weak to change fate found in this quote by Teiresias “...the wretch Who murdered Laius--that man is here. He passes for an alien in the land But soon

The events in Oedipus the King display an underlying relationship of man 's free will existing within the fate which the Greeks believed guided the universe in a congruent purpose. Man is free to choose his own path and is ultimately held accountable for his own actions. Both the concept of fate and free will played a vital part in Oedipus ' destruction. Although he was a victim of fate, he was not controlled by it. Oedipus was destined from birth to someday marry his mother and to murder his father. This prophecy, as warned by the oracle would inevitably come to pass, no matter what he may have done to avoid it. His past actions were determined by fate, but what he did in Thebes; he did so of his own will.

I find Oedipus to be a victim of fate rather than having free will. Free will could be seen to be more of an illusion than a reality. People and society like to make you think you have control over your own life while in you really do not have a choice in your fate, but do with the choices you make which lead you to it, you can determine when but not if. While it seems he could have tried harder to avoid his cursed destiny he ultimately unknowingly walked into it. He was born damned, to suffer and this makes him a true victim of the gods. Man is too weak to change fate found in this quote by Teiresias “...the wretch Who murdered Laius--that man is here. He passes for an alien in the land But soon shall prove a Theban, native born. And yet his fortune brings him little joy; for blind of seeing, clad in beggar's weeds, For purple robes, and leaning on his staff, To a strange land he soon shall grope his way. And of the children, inmates of his home, He shall be proved the brother and the sire, Of her who bare him son and husband both, Co-partner, and assassin of his sire. Go in and ponder this, and if thou find That I have missed the mark, henceforth declare I have no wit nor skill in prophecy” (450-461). The prophet says these words confidently and even put his reputation on the line to prove his wisdom is in fact true while Oedipus still wevers in fate's control of his life and believes he is more God like than he actually is while in reality he is just a mere mortal.