Fate and Free Will in Oedipus
The play offers an interesting
commentary on fate and free will. At the beginning, Oedipus rejects what the
seers say, but continues to investigate. Halfway through the play, starting at
line 1086, Oedipus laughs at fate, feeling foolish for having looked to “the
Pythian hearth… [and]…the birds overhead” after learning that the man he
believed to be his father had died of natural causes. But his arrogance in
believing he had bested the inevitable, well, inevitably came to an end. We
realize that by many chance events and a self-fulfilling prophecy, Oedipus
actually already completed his cursed prophecy.
The most
insightful lines of the play with respect to fate and free will come at line
1517.
“It was
Apollo, friends, Apollo, that brought this bitter bitterness, my sorrows to
completion. But the hand that struck me was none but my own.” (1517 – 1520)
While we
might not be able to “escape fate” it is not some external force which drives
our hand, but simply knowledge of an inescapable future. In this view, we can
see how fate and free will both exist, where we freely choose what to do, but
will inevitably fulfill fate.
We know that at the beginning Oedipus refused to accept his fate and tried to gain control over his life through doing things out of his free will (so he thought), like leaving Corinth. Ironically, like you've mentioned, it's exactly this choice to leave that led him to his fate and made him fulfill his prophecy. I like how you said that free will and fate can exist simultaneously. The way I look at this is that Oedipus' free will led him to his fate. Had he thought that there was nothing that he could do to alter his life, and simply stayed in Corinth, would his fate still come true? Maybe it still would, but it's exactly the fact that he thought he had free will, and tried to do something, that makes his story so tragic.
ReplyDeleteI also thought Oedipus effectively played with the notion of fate, but more importantly, with Oedipus' perspective of his own fate. At the start, Oedipus outrightly denies the prophet, but as he learns more information about who his real family is, he slowly realizes that his fate is inescapable.
ReplyDeleteOedipus is very tragic. Usually the lesson with plays of fate is that in trying to avoid destruction you ultimately are the cause of it. However, Oedipus has already committed the crime way before the investigation began. This idea that you bring up that we have free will yet can never truly escape destiny because we are who we are is very morbid and intriguing.
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