Oedipus Rex Cosmic Trial
Caitlin Lacy
AP English Literature
11/12/12
Persuasive Essay Everything happens for a reason. You were born for a reason, there’s a reason you got an F on your math quiz. Everything happens for a reason. Most of the time the reason for something bad happening might not be very clear to you, but it’s there. Everything that happens to you happens because it all leads up to your ultimate fate, you can’t change your fate because for one, you probably don’t know what it is, but if you happened to know, everything you do to prevent it will eventually lead up to it. Think back to why you got an F on your math quiz, you didn’t study at all. So, you get your quiz back and your teacher asks you to stay after class, after her lecture you walk out of class late and you bump into a guy, long story short, he’s your soul mate and fifteen years later you’re happily married. Imagine if you had studied. It was fate, you weren’t supposed to study. No one is to blame for Laius’s death, not even Oedipus, it was fate, and fate can’t be avoided. Before reading the play, we’re already aware of Oedipus’s story. We know what his ultimate fate is, so we know what that all of Oedipus’s actions led up to his ultimate fate. One of the first clues we are given is also one of the biggest clues proving that fate can’t be changed. King Laius didn’t kill Oedipus himself, he ordered the shepherd to do it for him. There was no way for Laius to know whether the shepherd would kill the infant or not because he wasn’t present. Naturally, the shepherd didn’t kill Oedipus because Oedipus was just an infant, and a person with a heart probably wouldn’t kill an infant just because, the shepherd then proceeded to give Oedipus to a messenger who then took the baby to Corinth where Oedipus was adopted by the king and queen. This leads to another clue, which is the fact that Oedipus was raised to believe that the king and queen of Corinth were his biological parents. Had he known they were
AP English Literature
11/12/12
Persuasive Essay Everything happens for a reason. You were born for a reason, there’s a reason you got an F on your math quiz. Everything happens for a reason. Most of the time the reason for something bad happening might not be very clear to you, but it’s there. Everything that happens to you happens because it all leads up to your ultimate fate, you can’t change your fate because for one, you probably don’t know what it is, but if you happened to know, everything you do to prevent it will eventually lead up to it. Think back to why you got an F on your math quiz, you didn’t study at all. So, you get your quiz back and your teacher asks you to stay after class, after her lecture you walk out of class late and you bump into a guy, long story short, he’s your soul mate and fifteen years later you’re happily married. Imagine if you had studied. It was fate, you weren’t supposed to study. No one is to blame for Laius’s death, not even Oedipus, it was fate, and fate can’t be avoided. Before reading the play, we’re already aware of Oedipus’s story. We know what his ultimate fate is, so we know what that all of Oedipus’s actions led up to his ultimate fate. One of the first clues we are given is also one of the biggest clues proving that fate can’t be changed. King Laius didn’t kill Oedipus himself, he ordered the shepherd to do it for him. There was no way for Laius to know whether the shepherd would kill the infant or not because he wasn’t present. Naturally, the shepherd didn’t kill Oedipus because Oedipus was just an infant, and a person with a heart probably wouldn’t kill an infant just because, the shepherd then proceeded to give Oedipus to a messenger who then took the baby to Corinth where Oedipus was adopted by the king and queen. This leads to another clue, which is the fact that Oedipus was raised to believe that the king and queen of Corinth were his biological parents. Had he known they were