Anthony Citerella
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Oedipus condemned guilty for murdering his own father. Cause: free will.
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Oedipus proclaimed innocent for incest with his mother. Cause: fate.
Before the start of the Oedipus trial, I believed that Oedipus was guilty of committing
both actions out of his own free will. My adamant reason was that fate could not be
explained and verified as a reason, and since he committed both crimes with his own
hands he was responsible. I considered that in the American legal system no person
would ever be proclaimed innocent because his or her actions were predetermined by
fate.
However, I soon realized that the question was not whether Oedipus had committed
the actions, which he obviously had, but whether he was responsible for them. This is
where the trial became confusing for everybody because Oedipus had committed the
actions, but was he himself responsible? This was the true question of the trial.
My belief is that Oedipus cannot be blamed for both actions because he was unaware
of what he was actually committing. Yes he killed a man, but he did not know the
man was Laius and that Laius was his father. Therefore he is guilty of killing a man,
but not of killing his father. And yes Oedipus did marry and have relations with a
woman, but he did not know that the woman was his mother. There is nothing wrong
with marrying a woman and having children with her, but it is wrong if that woman is
the mother.
In the closing statement of the first trial, I made a comparison of Oedipus’s actions to
a young child stealing from a store. Yes the child is guilty of stealing, but the child
does not know that stealing is wrong. Therefore, how can the child be condemned if
he did not know the action he committed is wrong? Likewise, how can Oedipus be
declared guilty if he was unaware of the actions he was committing?
I based all my actions in the trial on this principle, and I shared it with my fellow
defense attorneys so that they could see from this point of view. I was disappointed
that the prosecution won the first trial because the prosecution was unable to rebut
this idea that Oedipus was unaware of the actions he was committing. The
prosecution was victorious in the first trial because they were able to deceive Oedipus
as a witness to state that he felt responsible for the actions. These words were spoken
out of guilt, but the prosecution used them as evidence that resulted in Oedipus being
condemned guilty by his own free will.
The defense also stated that Oedipus direly tried throughout the entire play to avoid
the prophecy, but it eventually caught up with him. Our conclusion was that even
though Oedipus took every initiative to avoid then culmination of the prophecy, fate
allowed him to unknowingly commit those actions that led to its fulfillment. It was
this idea that led to victory for the defense in the second trial, that Oedipus had taken
every initiative to avoid the prophesy but he still could not .