Oedipus Fate example essay topic

Fate Is Omniscient When you are born your fate has already been predetermined, from what color your hair will be, what type of car you will drive, who you will marry, and ultimately how you will die. No matter what you do to alter your fate it won t work. You are only a chess piece on a chessboard known to you as the world. Oedipus fate was to murder his farther and wed his mother. Ironically, in his attempt to escape his cursed fate he actually runs right into it. When Oedipus was born the oracle prophesied that he would kill his father and wed his mother so in order to save themselves his parents had him killed, or so they thought.

He was chained to a mountainside by his ankles and left to die an agonizing death, but a wandering Shepard found him and saved him. He was brought to King of Corinth, who since he could not father any children of his own, raised him as if he were his. Oedipus knew nothing of his wretched fate until one day a drunken man in a pub told him the prophecy. In fear and love for his parents he ran from them and vowed never to return. On the road Oedipus met a man traveling in a carriage, and when told to step aside so they could pass, Oedipus struck out in anger and killed the King of Thebes, who we know to be his biological father and all of his men except one. Oedipus main character flaw throughout the play is that he is quick to anger.

He then continued on to Thebes where the sphinx was laying waste to the city and killing any man who could not answer it's riddle. No one could solve the sphinx's accursed riddle, not even the wise man of the town, Tiresias. Oedipus came to the city and solved the sphinx's riddle and brought peace and prosperity back to Thebes. The tranquility did not last long though because in the town he was quickly crowned king and wed to the Queen of Thebes, Jocasta (Oedipus's mother). Oedipus happiness lasts for only a short time because he begin to slowly find out the truth.

His quest for the truth is his downfall. He looks for the murder of Laius, unknown to him that the true murder is he. He finds out that a shepard knows the killer's identity and will not be satisfied until the shepard is brought before him and the truth is wrung out of him. Tiresias warns Oedipus that he is meddling in affairs best left alone, but Oedipus is too stubborn to listen to the advice. Ironically the blind seer can see the truth but Oedipus who can see cannot. The shepard appears before Oedipus and tells him the truth and slowly he begins to unravel the web of lies he was caught in.

He finds out he fulfilled his fate, he killed his father and wed his mother. He is appalled at his actions and seeks retribution upon himself by blinding himself and exiling himself from Thebes, never to return. Oedipus in his attempt to escape his fate by fleeing from Corinth he actually ran straight into it. You cannot control your fate, Oedipus damned himself through trying to escape it and alter it. If he would have remained in Corinth until his dying day the fate would never have come to be, so Oedipus made his own fate. Every step that you take and every breath that you take is all due to fate.

There is no freedom of choice no matter how much you would like to believe in it, only fate.