Character Identification With Oedipus

In Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, Oedipus is easily to identify with because displays how being arrogant will only lead to personal demise. If he did not think he was so great and better than everyone else it may have turned out better for him: hubris (excessive pride leading to disaster). Oedipus believes that he is a god, and displays his arrogance with his rudeness towards the chorus when he calls for them to pray to him. If Oedipus had accepted his destiny, rather than try to run away from it, Thebes may have accepted and forgave him, but this was not the case. Oedipus’s arrogance has skewed his perspective so much that he does not see the truth until he is blind. His blindness allowed him to block out the materialistic world around him and focus on what was really important. For me and all other teens alike it is so simple to become arrogant, whether it is socially, in sports, or even academically. Teenagers tend to focus on becoming popular, getting good grades, or getting jacked, rather than focusing on what is really important: the inside. So I have to ask myself who am I? If I had everything taken away from me and nothing, like Oedipus, would I end up like him? I cannot be constantly comparing myself to others, because by doing that I lose focus on myself and what really matters. If I truly find myself, then if I were to lose everything then I will have the ability to build myself up from the ashes. Oedipus has lost everything; he has nothing left, so he only has one choice: to build himself back up. Oedipus has had a lifetime of experience and his blindness has actually allowed for an improved view on life. He has at an all-time low so there is nowhere else to go but up.

Restriction of Free Will and Power of Fate Quote

A key theme in Oedipus Rex by Sophocles is the limits of an individual’s free will because fate will always run its course. A conversation between Teiresias and Oedipus is a perfect example of this theme:

Teiresias: Well, it will come what will, though I be mute.
Oedipus: Since come it must, thy duty is to tell me.
Teiresias: I have no more to say; storm as thou willst,
And give the rein to all thy pent-up rage.

Teiresias is saying that no matter what Oedipus does fate will catch up with him. The play is centered on prophecy, whose key component is fate. It opens with Creon saying that according to the oracles the plague will be ended if Thebes banishes the man who killed Laius. You begin to realize what is really going on when Oedipus tells Jocasta of a prophecy, that he would kill his father and sleep with his mother, similar to the prophecy given to Laius, that her son would grow up to murder his father. Oedipus argues against the validity of these prophecies and even tries to avoid them, but when they all come to fruition he is left to accept that fate will always plays its course. Oedipus seems to have no other choice but to fulfill his prophecy. He is sent away from Thebes and raised in Corinth, but he runs away when he hears about his prophecy to kill his father, but ends somehow replacing his father in Thebes marrying his mother. Oedipus does everything possible to change his fate, but it always continues to run its course regardless. Fate holds so much weight in the play that it is hard to place this entirety of the blame on Oedipus. It was not completely Oedipus’s ignorance, blindness, or foolishness that caused his demise; it was the fact that his fate was unavoidable. In accordance with Sophocles’ Greek philosophy, man is powerless when facing the fate chosen by the gods’.