Oedipus Free Will Research Paper

Free will is something that has always been questioned from the beginning of time. Do we really have the option of free will, or are we all destined to fate? The ancient Greeks believed in fate and that the gods had complete control over our lives. That concept is also believed in modern day society; Christianity believes that God has a plan for us and that our futures are already preordained. We see throughout the play that Oedipus’s life was prophesied from the beginning and as much as he tries to avoid it fate always seems to find him.
Oedipus’s future is foreseen earlier in his life when he traveled to Delphi. He is told that he will take his father's life and marry his mother. Oedipus, distraught by the news he heard, decides to stay away
The citizens beg Oedipus to remove the plague, so he sends his brother Creon to the oracle to learn how to remove the plague. Creon finally returns and announces that the plague can only be removed by finding Laius’s killer and bringing him to exact justice. Oedipus sets out to find the killer upon hearing this news, so he summons the blind prophet Tiresias. Tiresias refuses to tell Oedipus who the killer is so he demands that he tells him who the killer is and Tiresias tells him that he is the killer. Oedipus outraged by this news mocks and accuses Tiresias of being the killer and orders him to leave. Tiresias on his way out hints at an incestuous marriage and a future of blindness, infamy, and wandering. Oedipus in complete disbelief, seeks to gain advice from his wife
Jocasta’s advice worries Oedipus even more because on his way into the city he killed a man who resembled Laius. Oedipus every since he was a child was fated, when an oracle told him that he would kill his father and marry his mother. A messenger tells Oedipus that his father passed away from old age. The messenger also tells Oedipus that Polybus and Merope are not his biological parents, that he was the one who gave Oedipus to them. The messenger told him that it was a shepherd who gave him the baby. Oedipus anxious to find the truth decides to track down the shepherd to find out the truth about his real parents. Oedipus finds the shepherd and forces him to talk or he will kill him. The shepherd tells Oedipus that he is the son of Laius and Jocasta.
Oedipus unwillingly has fulfilled the prophecy that was told to him from the beginning. Oedipus tries to avoid his fate by all means necessary, but fate falls into place in the strangest ways possible. He was abandoned by his biological parents as a child and was adopted by Polybus and Merope. Fate always has a way of removing the option of free will to fulfill its task. Oedipus ran from his fate ever since and no matter how much he ran, fate always found him leaving him without the option of free