“An ignorant person is the blind instrument of their own deconstruction. ” (Bolivar) In the story “Oedipus the King,” Oedipus, not knowingly, tried to change his fate. A person’s fate is there to stick with them, it is inevitable and is not something to be tampered with. He did not know as much about himself as he thought he did and in the end, his stubbornness leads to a very tragic downfall. After Oedipus grows up, an oracle at Delphi tells him his fate is the death of his father by his own hands and that he will marry his mother. He does not answer the original question Oedipus asked as to who his true parents are.
Upon hearing this, Oedipus decides to leave the city and never return as long as his parents are alive. Oedipus is running from his fate as he leaves the city and heads far from there. On his travel down the road he encounters a horse drawn chariot and they force him off of the road, and as the charioteer went by Oedipus hits him, the man swings back, Oedipus hits him with a blow that knocks him out of the chariot, and the man falls dead to the ground. Oedipus continues his travels; he comes to a city called Thebes. After solving the riddle of the Sphinx, Oedipus becomes the King of Thebes and marries the current Queen, locaste.
Oedipus and locaste start a family and rule the prosperous city for many years but the people of the city are still furious that someone killed their king so they start to do some investigating. If Oedipus would have just left things alone, the people would have eventually just moved on. He was set on finding the killer of King Laios that he did not realize he was just pushing the people closer and closer to himself. He did not care about who killed the king, he just wanted to look better for locaste and the rest of the people of the city.
Even after an old, blind shepherd came and told him about the prophecy that he would grow up and murder his father then marry his mother and how Laios was supposed to kill him by piercing his feet and leaving him on a mountain, then being found by a shepherd who gave him to another shepherd who gave him to another shepherd who took him home with him then gave him to King Polybus and Queen Merope of Corinth to adopt him, Oedipus still refused to believe that he is the person that killed Laios and is sleeping with his mother.
When he and locaste discussed the problem and how she had a child that was destined to do the same thing, Oedipus thought of it as a total coincidence, but locaste starts catching on and tells him to just drop the issue but he still does not. As a result of him not giving, locaste hangs herself because she is so mortified from what she had done. When Oedipus discovers his partner lying on the floor dead, he finally comes to his senses and realizes what he has done and gouges his eyes put as punishment.
Over the entrance to the temple in Delphi are inscribed these words: “Know Thyself,” Oedipus is a classic example of a man whose central problem is that he does not know himself. It is understandable that he did not do a full background check on himself when he started to put the pieces together but if he would have just caught on a little sooner then maybe he could have tried to put the blame on someone else so that he could continue to be king or leave the city before anyone else noticed, none of this would have happened. He damned the person that killed Laios, essentially damning himself.
He married the woman that gave birth to him and had children with her, ruining his life along with his children’s, and ultimately resulting in the death of locaste. If he knew himself and who he truly was, he would have never married his mother or damned the person that killed the king. Oedipus chose to believe that he was not the person that killed the king even after all the signs pointed to him. If he would have just stopped and looked at the bigger picture, then he would have realized that everything he did and everything leading up until that point showed who he ruly was.
“Often the steps we take to avoid fate lead us to it. ” (Fontaine) In this story, fate affects three specific characters: Oedipus, locaste, and Laios. Their fate was with them from the day that they were born, so trying to change it was pointless. Laios unsuccessfully tried to change everyone’s fate. Even though fate is beyond anyone’s control, he still went through all of the trouble of trying to kill his only son. If Oedipus’ fate was to die as an infant, then it would have happened.