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Essay on Oedipus the King
Oedipus was king of Thebes, who had unknowingly killed his father and married his mother, Jocasta. Oedipus is a man of swift action and great insight. At the opening of Oedipus the King, we see that these qualities make him an excellent ruler who anticipates his subjects’ needs. When the citizens of Thebes beg him to do something about the plague, for example, Oedipus is one step ahead of them—he has already sent Creon to the oracle at Delphi for advice. But later, we see that Oedipus’s habit of acting swiftly has a dangerous side. When he tells the story of killing the band of travelers who attempted to shove him off the three-way crossroads, Oedipus shows that he has the capacity to behave rashly. At the beginning of Oedipus the King, Oedipus is hugely confident, and with good reason.
He has saved Thebes from the curse of the Sphinx and become king virtually overnight. He proclaims his name proudly as though it were itself a healing charm: “Here I am myself— / you all know me, the world knows my fame: / I am Oedipus” (7–9). By the end of this tragedy, however, Oedipus’s name will have become a curse, so much so that, in Oedipus at Colonus, the Leader of the Chorus is terrified even to hear it and cries: “You, you’re that man?
The play is about a man who is condemned to the fate that was predicted by the Oracle at Delphi before his birth. Oedipus learns of his fate and immediately tries to prevent it, as did his mother and father. The actions Oedipus, Jocasta, and Laios took actually fulfilled the prophecy the Oracle told them. This paper will examine the role of fate in this play and whether or not it is as uncontrollable as Sophocles makes it out to be......
