Oedipus's Fate example essay topic

In the Theban plays, Oedipus's fate and free will was destined at the beginning by the oracle's tale. Throughout the plays, Oedipus finally realizes that free will would not stop fate from happening. As the plays unfold, no matter what's done or said to change the events, fate is always predestined. Fate in the Webster's Dictionary states that fate is "the principle or determining cause or will by which things in general are believed to come to be as they are or events to happen as they do". Oedipus's parents thought they were doing the right thing, by sending him with the shepherd to die.

At the time they did not realize that they could not change fate by their own free will. Oedipus realizes this at Colonus when he said his parents did this to me so now I have to suffer because I was destined for doom. Furthermore, Oedipus's on display is typical of human nature, even though the particular situations they face may not be the same we face today. The characters in Greek drama tend to be characters you know or will some day meet. They will be your mates, your children, your in-laws, your bosses, and your colleagues.

Some of them have been your teachers. (In Oedipus you might look for remnants of any principals you might have known in Creon.) But, most importantly, they will be you. The reason is that there are various ways that our choices and decisions come back to haunt us, even when we make reasonable choices from the best possible motivation. (As the Chorus says near the end of Oedipus at Colonus "no man has ever lived out of the reach of misadventure's grasping hand".

) Often this is because we don't have sufficient knowledge or understanding of the likely consequences of a choice or action. "Fate" is the word often used in conjunction with classic Greek literature and drama, but fate in the sense of pre- determined outcomes is not a perspective held by many Americans today; and I think a more natural way for us to look at the actions and choices we, or the characters in the plays, have made... It is not that one is fated before one makes a choice to have certain consequences occur; but that certain consequences will inevitably, result from certain choices and actions. In conclusion, fate and free will have the same objective to me.

For instance, fate will always come out at the end of any situation. Free will always leads you back to where your path is ahead. [Just as Jocasta send Lau is try to send Oedipus to die in the mountain.] [So he wouldn't kill is father and commit incest by marrying his mother.] Either way, it went, Oedipus live a still kill his father and marry his mother. That scenario shows you that you cannot control, fate and free will it just to natural to occur. Fate and free will sound just as they mean, which states the principle of a situation. The concept is like cause and effect, they both need each other to be completed as a whole.

So, therefore, fate and free will work as a team pulling together for cause and effect. In the Theban plays, fate and free will played a major part in the three stories, which escalated the plots.