Adopt a Persona

Sophocles rolls the dice, and the outcome is always the same. Through nearly all my works I attempt to describe what the role the gods play in the lives of humans. I use destiny or fate as a placeholder for god in some of the plays. The works I will be drawing from are Ajax and Oedipus the King1. Fate, destiny and the gods are the driving force in the lives of humans. Man must bend to the will of the gods, to fate and to destiny. There are choices, and these choices may seem like free will, yet they have all been predetermined. Thus, there is no need for man to provoke the gods, destiny or fate, there is little choice, and only his path to his fate is chosen however, the fate will always be the same at the end. There are certain things that man may attempt to do in order to appease the gods, which include sacrifices, prayers, or simply giving one’s own life completely to the gods, fate or destiny, without a fight. Man has free will, he can make his own choices, and have his own life, but his fate is predetermined by the gods. The end will be the same, no matter his choices, the best way to live this predestined life is to live it as if one is free but knowing it is god, the gods, fate, and destiny that is the driving force behind all of one’s choices. It is important to analyze where the gods appear in my plays. If one is unable to view one of these plays in person, then one must use a bit of imagination. The gods of my plays2 are invisible to the characters on stage, yet visible to the audience3. They are represented by their function as a sign of what I explicitly call "the care of the gods"4. In my play, Ajax the goddess Athena comes to Odysseus to show him her tremendous power, she is not there to advise him or intervene in his life. She is there to show that she can crush even the great heroes. She appears before Odysseus to show how she alone saved the Greeks from Ajax’s fury. Athena then goes on to show how she made Ajax into a literal puppet, of