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Oedipus The King: The Hero Of Personal Autonomy

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Oedipus the King: The Hero of Personal Autonomy in Inevitable Fate Tragedy
Abstract: Oedipus the King, written by Sophocles, who was one of Athens’s three great tragic dramatists, is an indisputably classical tragedy in literature history. And Oedipus’s tragic fate, murdering his father and marrying his mother, is the most controversial point. This paper mainly analyzes the conflict between Oedipus’s spirit of personal autonomy and the oracle predetermined fate, and the causes of Oedipus’s inevitable tragedy.
Key word: Oedipus; personal autonomy; fate; inevitability
Introduction
Oedipus the King is based on a Greek myth that Oedipus killed his father and married to his mother, showing the Greek tragedy’s conflict rich of typical significance …show more content…
In the face of fate, he was not docile and obedient, but fought tooth and nail and managed to escape from the "divinity" prophecy. Then, he revealed the riddle of the Sphinx, rescued Thebes people from distress. Finally, in order to save the people from the plague, he was desperate to trace the murder of the former king; once the truth came out, he had the courage to take responsibility, offered to exile himself. For the misfortune of such a hero who had done countless good deeds for people and for the country, Sophocles was deeply indignant, issued a suspicion of the justice of God, accused the injustice and cruelty of fate, praised the protagonist’s strong will and heroic behavior in the struggle against fate. Therefore, in spite of the outcome is tragic, but this spirit knowing the inviolability of prophecy but violating, is an affirmation of the individual autonomy spirit, and a reflection of the advanced ideology of the Athens slave master democracy. The limitation of human is noticeable and the fate is irresistible in the conflict between human will and fate. However, only in the intense conflicts between people's will and the destined fate, we can realize how strong the will of people could be, and how laudable the spirit of people’s tenacious fighting against the fate is. The subjective initiative of human is placed in an important position, and the twists and turns of fate are in order to reflect …show more content…
Also, the word “tragedy” means “the song of goats”, which comes from the sacrificial rite of Dionysus, is well known in ancient Greek. But why tragedy has so close a relation to the sacrificial rate, which is asking for rich and fertile. Simon noted that only the protagonist of the tragedy to expiate the sins of human kind as a scapegoat could make sure the God feel people’s prayer and give good weather for the corps and health for people (2000). Zhu also claimed that ancient Greek tragedy is mainly about the relation between God and mankind, and if we are trying to appreciate it rationally without the background of primitive myths and the view of life of fatalism we will fail to grasp the essence of it (1989). Consequently, the manifest destiny theory is reflected by God’s complex and authoritative oracle. In Oedipus the King, God gave Oedipus’s s parents an oracle that their son would kill his father and marry his mother. This oracle predetermined Oedipus’s and his family’s fate. When Oedipus’s natural father heard the oracle, he ordered his servant to kill his son, but Oedipus finally survived dramatically. Ironically, Oedipus was adopted by King Polybus. What is worse, the oracle really occurred after he was told about the oracle and tried to avoid it. All these dramatic accidents are not unforeseeable but were designed by God. Oedipus is chosen to be the scapegoat for rescuing people from

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