Oedipus the king written by sophecles when read for the first time the reader will realize that the audience already knows what is going to happen its just the way that the characters deal will with it. There is an oracle that says that Oedipus will kill his father and marry his mother. Sophecles examines the relationship between fate and free will. Fate being what some say is an excuse. For example if I said that I could not do what I wanted to do I could say it was fate, which is junk. What is fate? Fate is something that is supposedly set out for some one when they are born.
Fate pertaining to the play oedipus rex is that the mother queen locasta and the father king Laios have learned from an oracle that their son Oedipus was to kill his father and marry his mother. So in an effort to get away from this horrible fate, they give their son to a shepered to pierce his ankles and to never be seen again. They thought that was the end of it. Thus making Oedipus an outcast from his kingdom that when his father leaves is his to rule. But their son oedipus, who grows up in corinth finds that the king and queen there are not his biological parents.
He sets out to find his parents on the way he kills all but one man on a caravan that tried to run him off the road. (later to be found out that it was his father king lois. In the story sophecles uses fate and free will to keep the drama going There by making it a dramatic technique. Friedrich nietzsche talks about how finding out your fate before hand gives you knowledge of what oedipus wanted to not come true unconsciously has come true. (Neitzsche29blooms) This basically means that if Oedipus had lived with his parents and had his parents not have given him up he could have probably avoided all of this.
But since this did not happen Oedipus is forced to fend for himself. So fate is something that many people use an excuse for something that they have not yet accomplished. Also fate plays a big part in the play because Oedipus who finds out from creon that there is a killer among them, he does not know who was killed or that he had done the killing. Free will pertaining to the play is what the character in this case oedipus does to avoid the fate that the oracle has set out for him. This means that Oedipus is so determined to find out who the killer of the king is.
He goes throughout the play talking to people who might know anything about what went on before he became king. One person he talks to is terrisies. He is blind and basically says that oedipus is the killer of king Laios. Oedipus gets angry because that is a big charge. Also Oedipus has laid out a decree saying that whoever the killer is, is to be banished and not spoken to by anyone In the community. So terissies says that I should not be even talking to you because you are the killer. Es shucks burg talks about how freewill causes Oedipus to be strong and to find the killer.
This basically means that sophecles wrote Oedipus to be the strongest of all the characters until the very end. It is my opinion that if Oedipus was not strong there could have been consequences before the play even hit its high point. Oedipus had to be strong to learn that he was his father’s killer Oedipus had to be strong to learn that he was his fathers killer. Aristotle talks about the use of a reversal. This is when terisies said reveals that Oedipus is the killer and tells him this family on Cornish is not his family at all. Also this makes his kids his sisters rather than his kids, because his mother bore his kids.
T. b. l. Webster examined sophecles’ conception of the gods. By saying the gods administer justice n accordance with their laws. In he play Oedipus Rex they are unwritten and sure laws of the gods not for yesterday or today, but eternal. They are partly moral commands such as bury the dead avenge the dead commit no injustice And partly universal principles such as the danger of excess and the changes of human fortunes. For both there are analogies in other writings from the time of Hesiod onwards and sophecles is writing in an ell established tradition. (Webster cmlc.
Is says how the tradition of writing started, and says that the play was written very well according to Aristotle’s critique. It also says that back in the day everything depended on what the gods said. If the gods say kill your self they probably would do What the gods had said and if they did not they would face an ugly fate such as having to die slow or to not be able to have babies or to not be ale to see for the rest of your life.
There is a way to avoid all problems and that is to be you’re self and if something happens the make the best of it. E. S. uckburg says that a careful study of the play itself will suffice to show that the second of these two views is the true one. Sophecles has allowed Oedipus to put his case ably and he has been content to make jocasta a do the non thinkable by giving her son away, and not being exempt from human passion and human weakness. But none the less does he mean us to feel that, in this controversy, the right is wholly with her and the wrong wholly with her judge. (Shuckburg bloom29. ) This is what makes her cry when she finds out that she has slept with her son and that he is her husband’s killer.
When Oedipus finds out that he killed his father he then proceeds to tell his mother who stabs herself. After this happens Oedipus takes her brooches and proceeds to poke his eyes out as to not be able to see that the fate he once tried to get away from has now come true. In conclusion sophecles Oedipus the king was a very good play yet tragic, but it is good for telling someone how to deal with the fate. The play also tells us when to exercise free will and when to just give up and not try to find the truth.