Oedipus: The Mysteries Of Fate Essay, Research Paper

Oedipus: The Mysteries of Fate

Robert Choi

Among the first thing a historian discovers in his survey of early

civilisation are records of people & # 8217 ; s belief, or religion, in powers greater than

themselves, and their desire to understand what causes these powers to move.

Peoples everyplace wonder about the fantastic things in the sky and on the Earth.

What makes the rain? How do the workss and animate beings live and grow and decease? Why

are some people lucky and others luckless? Some believe in free will while

others believe in destiny or fate. In the drama Oedipus the King by Sophocles,

Oedipus was a true victim of destiny.

Supreme beings and goddesses were believed to be responsible for the admirations of

scientific discipline, and the vagaries of human nature ; hence, harmonizing to the facts of

this narrative, Oedipus was a true victim of destiny for several grounds. Laius and

Jocasta, the childless male monarch and queen of Thebes, were told by the God Apollo

that their boy would kill his male parent and get married his female parent ( page 56 ) . A boy was

born to them, and they tried to do certain that the prognostication would non come true.

They drove a metal pin through the babies mortise joints and gave it to a shepherd,

with instructions to go forth it to decease. The shepherd pitied the small baby so

he gave the kid to another shepherd. This shepherd gave the babe to a

childless male monarch and queen of Corinth, Polybus and Merope. This royal twosome

named the male child Oedipus, which in its Grecian signifier Oidipous means & # 8220 ; swollen foot. & # 8221 ;

Oedipus was brought up believing that Polybus and Merope were his existent parents,

and Lauis and Jocasta believed that their kid was dead and the prognostication of

Apollo was false. Many old ages subsequently, he was told by a rummy adult male at a feast that

he was non a true inheritor of Polybus ( page 55 ) . He so went to the prophet of

Apollo, to inquire the God who his existent parents were. All he was told was that he

would kill his male parent and get married his female parent ( page 56 ) . He resolved ne’er to

return to Corinth, to Polybus and Merope, and started out to do a new life for

himself elsewhere. He came to a topographic point where three chief roads met, and in the

narrow topographic point was ordered off the route and so attacked by the driver of a

chariot in which an old adult male was siting. A battle started, and Oedipus, in self-

defence, killed the old adult male and his attenders. The old adult male in the chariot was

Lauis, male monarch of Thebes, and the male parent of Oedipus. Although Oedipus had non

known it, he had killed his male parent and the first half of the prognostication of Apollo

was fulfilled. Oedipus continued on his manner and arrived at Thebes. He solved a

conundrum which saved the metropolis from the sphinx. He became the male monarch of Thebes, and

so married a lady by the name of Jocasta. The prognostication of Apollo was now

wholly fulfilled. Oedipus holding no cognition of Apollo & # 8217 ; s prophecy being

true, cursed the person who killed Laius to be banished from Thebes everlastingly.

After seting two and two together, it was he, Oedipus, who had killed Laius,

his ain male parent. He did non travel back on his word, and like a adult male, he dethroned

himself as male monarch, and banished himself from Thebes. Once once more, he was destined

to be dethroned and banished.

Comparing my life with Oedipus & # 8217 ; , I & # 8217 ; ve discovered a great trade about free

pick and fate. I learned that one twenty-four hours, you can be the richest individual alive,

yet be the poorest individual the following twenty-four hours and frailty versa. In life, anything can

go on, whether it is expected or unexpected. That is when destiny overrides and

overpowers free will. Free will is a pick that an single decides to make or

accomplish. Destiny or destiny is what merely happens. No 1 knows when or how

something will go on, but it will. Laius and Jocasta heard that their kid

will kill the male parent and get married the female parent. Even after abandoning the babe and

believing that he was dead, the prognostication was destined and someway came true.

With me acquiring caught for shrinkage was besides destined. The voices I heard in

my caput was a warning, and I chose to disregard it but it was destined to go on.

The twenty-four hours our lives end, we don & # 8217 ; t take where we will travel, we, I believe, are

destined to be sent where we belong.

In the drama Oedipus the King by Sophocles, Oedipus was a true victim of

destiny. Like Oedipus, there was a clip in my life when I excessively, felt like a victim

of destiny. The Greeks had an orderly account of the creative activity of the universe.

From this Grecian calamity, I learned more about their manners, imposts and ideals.

I & # 8217 ; ve grown to appreciate their love of beauty, their joy and laughter, as good

as the sorrows they experienced in life. I besides realized how great of power

fate and destiny have over free will. The moral of this drama I learned is that

if it & # 8217 ; s destined, it will sooner or later go on!