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| Oedipus with the Sphinx |
These aren't my Discussion Items, but extra questions I had about the book in general and my opinion about fate vs. free will:
Fate vs. free will is a large issue in Oedipus Rex. I think part of it is fate, but another part is the characters reacting to the fate they have been given. If the King and Queen of Thebes had not given Oedipus away to be killed, would the story be different? Would Oedipus still end up killing his father and sleeping with his mother? The overreaction of his parents is at fault here. Though Oedipus is not necessarily free of blame. It was his anger that cause him to murder his father.
That was one part of the reading I did not understand. Why exactly did Oedipus kill the men in the carriage that he later found out were his father and his entourage? What made him so angry that he felt he had to kill them?
Another question I had about the book was when the mother, Jocasta, figured out that Oedipus was her son very early, but she decided not to tell him. Why was this? What purpose is there to keep Oedipus in the dark about his own story? Did she not think he would figure it out and could keep living the way things were before?
I also wrote about the topic of fate vs free will. I think that the story line in general is very interesting and the way that the events played out to be. The reason the events turned out the way that they did is the real question.
ReplyDeleteI think that fate has a big role in the way Oedipus reacted to the men on the road. The way Sophocles writes the play makes me think that there was no way these characters could get around this prophecy of Oedipus killing his father and sleeping with his mother. I also wrote about Oedipus picking the road not followed and wondered how the story would have turned out but I guess we will never know.
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