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THE PREDESTINATION OF OEDIPUS REX
Daniel Fugitt
Monday, December 4, 2006
Dr. Holle - HIS 229
It is a common theme in all Greek plays to use fate as the determining factor in
the outcome of one’s life. Sophocles’ Oedipus the King is no different. This play uses
fate, or predestination, as the central tenet of how events in the lives of the characters
portrayed, must occur. The play beautifully demonstrates how it is impossible for one to
escape what has been preordained in life. Fate dominates the existence of Sophocles’
characters throughout this play, most notably that of Oedipus and his tragic life. This is
illustrated throughout the development of his character. From the time of a young man,
Oedipus runs from all he knows, in an attempt to escape from what an oracle predicted
him to do - kill his father and marry his mother. However, it is this attempt to flee that
actually leads Oedipus into his fate.
In order to see how fate dominates the life of Oedipus, specific segments of the
story must be examined. The play of Oedipus the King is set in Ancient Greece in the
polis of Thebes, the city that Oedipus loves. The city is stricken with a plague of death,
one that is killing humans, animals and crops alike. In an attempt to find out what is
causing the plague and harming his people, Oedipus sends his friend Creon, to the house
of Apollo at Delphi to learn what they must do to save their city. Creon returns, and
proclaims to Oedipus, “the shedding of blood is the cause of our city’s peril”. Creon goes
on to inform Oedipus that the god Phoebus has stated that the only means of reversing the
dreadful effects placed on Thebes is to banish the murderer (Page 28).
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It is here where the city learns that the disaster is due to the murder of the former
King, Laius (the position of king is now held by Oedipus). Not knowing who had killed
the former King, Oedipus speaks to the people of Thebes from his palace and tells them
that there is nothing that he will not do to save his beloved city. He asks the person(s)
who committed the crime to come forward. Only banishment will be his punishment
(Page 31). When no one comes forward as the perpetrator, Oedipus calls upon the
prophet Teiresias in hopes that he will disclose what he knows of the murder. It is here
where Oedipus first encounters fate. Although he does not know it, this statement is the
first piece of a large puzzle that makes up the unusual circumstances of how Oedipus
arrived at his current situation.
At first, the prophet is reluctant to tell the King what he knows. Oedipus quickly
angers and responds, “What? Something you know, and will not tell? You mean to fail
us and to see your city perish?” (Page 35). Teiresias, still reluctant, informs the King that
he is sparing him and that he will divulge no information. Oedipus will not let up,
however. He continues to place threats upon the prophet until finally, Teiresias
proclaims, “Then hear this: upon your head is the ban your lips have uttered – from this
day forth never speak to me or any here. You are the cursed polluter of this land” (Page
35). Oedipus believes that the soothsayer is merely playing a trick, and was sent by his
friend, Creon to plant false seeds in the King’s mind. He rejects Teiresias’ testimony and
begins to place the blame on Creon. Teiresias replies, “Not Creon either. Your enemy is
yourself” (Page 36). Nevertheless, Oedipus has convinced himself that Creon is the
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killer, stating that he was the “…proved plotter against my life, thief of my crown” (Page
40).
More pieces of the puzzle fall into place as the prophet Teiresias continues to
forecast Oedipus’ fate. “He that came seeing, blind shall he go; Rich now, then a beggar;
stick in hand, groping his way to a land of exile.” (Page 38)
Oedipus renounces their friendship and declares that Creon is his “bitterest
enemy” (Page 40, continued). Following this accusation, the two men proceed to argue.
Creon adamantly denies the charges made against him by his friend. He requests that
Oedipus should prove himself. At that instance, the queen, Jocasta, wife of Oedipus and
sister to Creon, arrives. Jocasta asks what the argument is about and why there is such
hatred among these friends. King Oedipus states that the hatred is caused by Creon’s plot
against the crown, and his accusation that it was Oedipus that killed King Laius.
Once more the puzzle pieces of Oedipus’ life begin to come together. Jocasta
denies her husband’s accusation and tells him that she has proof that an oracle prophesied
that Laius’ death would result “by the hands of his own child, his child and mine.”
According to Jocasta, however, it was common knowledge that Laius was killed instead,
by robbers at a place where three roads meet (Page 45). She goes on to say that, to make
sure that the child did not kill his father, the baby, not yet three days old, was taken to the
remote side of a mountain, his ankles riveted, and left there to die.
Here is where the power of fate again plays a significant role in Oedipus’ life. As
he listens to his wife’s story, he recalls that his journey from Corinth brought him to the
place where three roads meet (Page 48). It was at that place where he came upon a
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carriage carrying an old man. The driver of the carriage pushed Oedipus aside, and, in his
anger, Oedipus killed all present. Horrified, King Oedipus realizes that he was the one
who killed King Laius. At this point, Oedipus begins to get nervous, thinking that
somehow, after all he had done to get away from it, his fate as told to him would indeed
come to be.
Soon thereafter, a messenger from Corinth arrives with news that Oedipus’ father,
King Polybus, is dead. Oedipus thought perhaps that the oracle was wrong in predicting
his death by his son’s hand. However, he is still fearful because his mother lives. The
prediction also claims that Oedipus will marry his mother. He expressed his fears to the
messenger: “Loxias said I was foredoomed to make my mother my wife, and to kill my
father, with my own hands shedding his blood. This is the reason for my long
estrangement from Corinth” (Page 53). Once again, it was fate that brought the two men,
Oedipus and the messenger, together after so many years. The messenger tells Oedipus
that he has been deceived his entire life. Polybus, the king of Corinth, and Meropé, his
wife, were not actually his parents. It was the messenger who, many years ago, gave
Oedipus to them to raise as their own. Oedipus feels that the words of the god, Phoebus
may yet be true (Page 53). The messenger continues with his story of how he was a
young shepherd. One day, while tending sheep, by chance he found the baby Oedipus on
a mountainside with his ankles riveted. It was he who set Oedipus free and gave him to
the king of Corinth to care for (Page 54). Oedipus’ fears are confirmed, and the final
piece to the puzzle of his life has been set in place. He realizes that the words of the
oracle rang true after all. He did indeed kill his father and marry his mother with whom
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he had four children: two sons Eteocles and Polynices and two daughters, Ismene and
Antigone.
In desperation, Oedipus’ wife/mother took her own life –“ a strangled woman
swinging before our eyes.” Oedipus, after discovering his dead mother, could no longer
bear what he had done. His guilt overcame him and he blinded himself. “Her dress was
pinned with golden broaches, which the king snatched out and thrust, from full arm’s
length, into his eyes – eyes that should see no longer his shame, his guilt.” (Page 61)
The blind Oedipus demands that Creon, now king of Thebes, banish him from his
beloved city, as he had earlier demanded be done. “His fate will be nothing worse than
banishment” (Page 32). Fate had again come true for Oedipus. As foretold by Teiresias,
Oedipus would go blind, become a beggar, and be exiled.
Sophocles’ play ends here. It has been discussed how fate plays an important role
in the lives and actions of King Oedipus. Evidence of predestined events can be found,
beginning with the oracle’s promise of the demise of Oedipus’ father and the marrying of
his mother, to Teiresias’ prediction of a blind and exiled man. All his life, try as he may
to run away from his fate, Oedipus ended up running right into it. Oedipus realizes that,
in the end, he could do nothing to change the course of the fateful events that made up his
life.
“Is this my sin? Am I not utterly foul? Banished from here, and in my
banishment debarred from home and from my fatherland, which I must shun forever, lest
I live to make my mother my wife, and kill my father . . .my father . . . Polybus, to whom
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I owe my life. Can it be any but some monstrous god of evil that has sent this doom upon
me?”
“O never, never, holy powers above, may that day come! May I be sooner dead
and blotted from the face of the earth, than live to bear the scars of such vile
circumstances” (Page 48).
Oedipus’ fate was determined, not by him, but by an unknown force. He and his
family understood this fully by the end of the play, as these words were uttered, “Chance
rules our lives, and the future is unknown” (Page 52).