Sophocles’s Oedipus the King is an intriguing mythical Greek tragedy that examines the harmartia, hubris, and self-knowledge of the tragic hero Oedipus, King of Thebes. The drama develops into a tragic tale of patricide and incest but Sophocles’s underlying theme is the irony in Oedipus’s attempt to elude his fate.
At birth, an oracle prophesied that Oedipus would grow up to murder his father Laios and marry his mother Jocasta. Jocasta and Laios, in an attempt to elude fate, send a shepherd to leave Oedipus in the wilderness alone to die. Feeling compassion for baby Oedipus the shepherd instead hands Oedipus over to King Polybus and Queen Merope of Corinth where he grew up a man amongst men. One day during a feast, a drunken man informs Oedipus that he is not an actual son of Polybus and Merope. Concerned, Oedipus heads to the shrine at Delphi where the gods inform Oedipus of the same fate foretold to his actual parents years ago. Weighed down by fear, Oedipus leaves Corinth, the city where he believes his parents live, in order that he would not carry out this devious act. But as he fled his supposed fate at Corinth, he arrives at the fork in the road where he is run off the road by a chariot and in a case of modern day road rage, as Oedipus states:
As the charioteer lurched over towards me I struck him I struck him in my rage. The old man saw me and brought his double goad down upon my head as I came abreast. He was paid back and more! Swinging my club in this right hand I knocked him out of his car, and he rolled on the ground. I killed him. (Lamm 126)
The Essay on Oedipus Fate Vs Free Will
In Oedipus the King, one of Sophocles' most popular plays, Sophocles clearly depicts the Greek's popular belief that fate will control a man's life despite of man's free will. Man was free to choose and was ultimately held responsible for his own actions. Throughout Oedipus the King, the concept of fate and free will plays an integral part in Oedipus' destruction. Destined to marry his mother and ...
Unbeknownst to Oedipus is the blinding realization that in his attempt to flee, he has fulfilled the first part of the oracles prophecy.
Oedipus then arrives at Thebes were he uses common sense to solve the riddle of the Sphinx. The people of Thebes, to show their gratitude, make Oedipus the new King of Thebes. He then marries the widow of previous King Liaos, Jocasta and as ordained by the oracle, has unknowingly fulfilled the prophecy: He has married his father’s wife, Jocasta his mother. This fulfillment of prophecy raises the question in regards to predestined matters; are we powerless to the biddings of the gods? The father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud states that it’s not so much a question of gods destiny as it is a caution to humanities unbounded arrogance: “a warning at ourselves and our pride, at us who since our childhood have grown so wise and so mighty in our own eyes” (Freud 71).
The downfall for Oedipus being his harmartia, his overconfident belief that he was powerful enough to outwit his destiny.
