Blog 6

A man cannot escape his destiny

The myth of Oedipus revolves around a man destined to suffer a horrible fate. He was born in a wealthy family but had little control over how he would take control of the wealth. He was born when both his parents were alive but was responsible for their eventual death. He was born with eye sight but was the reason for becoming blind. It was his destiny that propelled him toward those unfortunate circumstances despite his several attempt to escape those.

Oedipus’ first destiny was that he lived despite his parents’ wishes. When his parents learnt that their son would kill the father and marry the mother, they gave him away to have him killed. Unfortunately the prospective be killer pitied on the child and let him live. Thus Oedipus starts his childhood in Cornith although he was born in Thebes. This paves a path toward his ultimate destiny.

As a grown up when he learnt about his destiny, he tried to escape it by leaving Cornith. Little did he know that the Polybus and mother Merope were only his foster parents in Cornith. His ignorance that his actual parents lived in Thebes where he chose to start a new life made his attempt to escape his fate futile. In his words, “it was my fate to defile my mother’s bed, to bring forth to men a human family that people could not bear to look upon, to murder the father who endangered me”. (951-954). Despite his desperate measures to escape it, he started his journey to fulfilling the Oracle’s prophecy.

On his way to Thebes, Oedipus engaged in a fight with his father King Laius. Not knowing that it was his own father, he killed King Laius and his companions. When he finally arrived in Thebes, he solved the sphinx riddle and became the king of Thebes and married his mother Jocasta. After many years, when there was a deadly plague was ruining peoples lives, people came to Oedipus for help. Oedipus then sent Creon to the temple of Apollo to find the destiny of Thebes. He found out that it was the killer of the King Laius who was responsible for the plague. Alas he was yet to know that it was him who killed King Laius.

Even after Teiresias informed Oedipus that he was King Laius’ killer, he was not convinced. He continued to deny that his actions caused the plague in Thebes. Furthermore when Creon supported Teiresias’ prophecy, Oedipus humiliated both of them. This also is an indication that Oedipus’s fate was to marry his own mother and eventually be the reason of her death. He started to realize what might have happened only after Jocasta confirmed that “Oracle said Laius was fated to be killed by a child conceived by him and me” (857-858). At this point, there was nothing else that Oedipus could do to save his father.

However he could have saved his mother’s life by listening to her when she pleaded not to call upon the shepherd who was commissioned to kill him as a child. Alas he did not heed and confirmed that it was none but him who was the murderer of his father. When truth became apparent, his mother committed suicide and a sense of tremendous guilt engulfed him. He punished himself by taking his own eye-sight which further proved the accuracy of Teiresias’ prediction “those in the world below and those….from this land in exile. Those eyes of yours….clearly will be dark” (503-507). Thus the fate of Oedipus came to a full circle when he not only ruined his parent’s lives but also his own.

In conclusion, we can say that no one can change his destiny. Oedipus tried to change his fate more than once but he failed every time.