Fate In The Oedipus Trilogy

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Fate is an inescapable truth of our Universe, as it has been since the beginning of time, and has been a recurring theme throughout human history. In ancient Greece, Sophocles portrayed the theme of fate in the Oedipus Trilogy. Oedipus was doomed from the start, his path and that of his children was decided before he was even born. Oedipus tried to run from his future, his destiny, only to fall right into place. Even in death, every aspect of Oedipus’ life was intertwined with the will of the Gods. His children were vulnerable to the Fates’ hands, much like their father and brother. Also, whether through modern science or the will of ancient gods, both modern and Ancient Greek civilizations have recognized fate and its inevitability. Oedipus,…show more content…
Oedipus went to the Oracle of Delphi to seek the truth about his bloodline, only to be told that he “should lie with [his] mother, breed children from whom all men would turn their eyes; and that [he] should be [his] father’s murderer.”(Sophocles 42). In a futile attempt to save who he believed to be his biological parents, Oedipus ventures straight into his real father, King Laios of Thebes, and murders him. Not only does Oedipus kills his father but he also goes on to marry his birth mother, Iocaste, by solving the Sphinx’s riddle, just as foretold by the Oracle at Delphi. This a pattern that King Laios, himself, attempted, in his effort to avoid his own death by having his son killed after birth, only to fall into the role the Fates had spun for him. Those before and after Oedipus have unsuccessfully, attempted to avoid the unavoidable, that is fate. Oedipus’ sons and daughters fell subject to the interest of the omniscient forces above. As part of Oedipus’ fate, his children will be ignored and unaccepted by the world. This proves true in the story of Antigone. Despite Creon’s promise to Oedipus to “not let them fall into beggary and loneliness; [and] keep them from the miseries that are [Oedipus’]” (Sophocles 79), Creon orders that none shall mourn or bury…show more content…
But modern society generally agrees with scientific studies and theories, such as quantum mechanics. Although both can be used to explain the phenomenon of fate or destiny. For the ancient Greeks, the solution was simple, any question beyond the realm of what they could understand through what little technological and scientific advancement they benefitted from was explained through fables and myths of a multitude of deities of untold powers controlling the forces of nature and the behaviors of man and animal. Destiny was controlled by the three Moirai or Fates in ancient Greek mythology, who spun the thread of life and decided how and when a person should live or die, predetermining all to be. Well, hundreds of years later, science may finally be able to agree. Within the insanely complex topic of quantum mechanics, a theory exists that future determines the past and present. The theory states that any definite measurement or action upon an object makes it decidedly so, meaning that the future, the end result, remains the same as the past will conform to allow the future to become true. In other words, unfortunately no matter what a person may do he or she can never change what is to be. A lesson Oedipus learns in Oedipus Rex all too
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