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Oedipus Rex Fate Vs Free Will

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Merriam Webster defines free will as “the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion.” Fate is a development of events beyonds a person’s control. These ideas are exactly what Sophocles is challenging is his play Oedipus Rex. In Oedipus Rex the protagonist Oedipus is trying to figure who killed the former king Laius, not realizing he was the killer himself. Oedipus was destined to kill his father and marry his mother. Throughout the play, Oedipus is torn between accepting the prophecy or choosing his own destiny. Despite his best effort, the prophecy laid out for him came true. Oedipus Rex uses symbolism to illustrate the theme that one can never escape fate. One symbol used in Oedipus Rex is the scars on his feet. It represent the suffering he has endured and will keep on enduring. In the play Oedipus finds out from a messenger that his adopted father Polybus is dead. The messenger explains how long ago he found a baby on Mount Cithaeron with its …show more content…
In Scene 1 Oedipus talks to Teiresias who is a blind oracles because he claims he knows who the murderer of King Laius is. Teiresias then accuses Oedipus of being the killer and Oedipus retaliates. (Albert et al. 322). Teiresias responds with, “You mock my blindness do you?... wretchedness of your life” (Sophocles 1. 398-400). This shows the how Oedipus’s ignorance and excessive pride gets in his way of finding the killer. He believes he is incapable of doing and an act such as this one. He is willing to deny an oracle’s statement for his own namesake. Tiresias goes in to say, “Who are your father and mother? Can you tell me? You do not even know the blind wrongs That you have done them, on earth and in the world.” (Sophocles 1. 402-404). This explains how a blind man knows the truth more than Oedipus and that Oedipus is so ignorant to even acknowledge it as

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