Oedipus The King 5 Essay, Research Paper

Oedipus the King

Fate is a very crucial aspect of everybody s life. All people have their fate predetermined for them by God before they are even born. Some times a person can control what happens to him/her but only to a certain extent. The reason that some happenings are controlled to an extent goes to the fact that all other aspects in life are controlled by a higher power. There are so many occurrences in life that may not be introduced to certain people. However, eventually some of these occurrences may be introduced to the person. In most cases people have to deal with what they fall into and try to make the best out of it. Oedipus had a lot of strange happenings in his life such as being abandoned by his mother to die, being adopted by a different family and some other things that will be explained in detail. In this paper, I will address some of the events that involved Oedipus s life, how those events affected his life, and finally how he adapted to his fate.

Oedipus was born to the royal family of Thebes as the King s son. The God had told Oedipus s mother that she had to get rid of him because he would kill his father and marries his mother. Therefore, Oedipus s mother ended up giving Oedipus to a stranger and asked him to kill Oedipus as a baby. Then the stranger felt sorry for the baby and he ended up giving the baby to a family for adoption. Oedipus grew up and left the family that adopted him at a young age. Oedipus then killed the King of Thebes and the guards with him while he was travelling with out knowing that he was his father. After that Oedipus answered the Sphinx brittle and became the new King of Thebes. Shortly after becoming the King, Oedipus marries the Queen of Thebes who was his own mother. However, neither Oedipus nor his mother knew that they were related to each other.

Then the story goes on about how Oedipus discovered what happened to him and to his parents. Oedipus then reacted in a certain way that supported the story. The way Oedipus reacted to the discovery of what happened to him and to his parents will be discussed in the last part of this paper.

Oedipus felt good at first to become a King and to have a lot of people believe in him and trust him. When Creon Jocasta s brother brought the news from the Gods about how they should clean up the mess and kill the person who killed the King, a blind man approached Oedipus and told him that he was the killer. Oedipus did not believe the blind man and he criticized him. At that point, Oedipus started to get confused about who really killed the King. Then Oedipus started to investigate the killing more carefully so that he could obey the orders of the Oracle. During the investigation, Oedipus met a messenger that told him about his childhood and how his mother gave him to someone to kill. Oedipus’s mother was the Queen of Thebes at the time. By this time, Oedipus was really confused and determined to find out about the whole truth. Therefore, Oedipus called for the person that took him from his mother and gave him to a family that adopted him. Oedipus called for the person who took him from his mother just to make sure about all the flying information in his head that he have been hearing from people. When he finally met the person that took him as a baby, Oedipus heard the news that was not very satisfactory. The stranger told Oedipus that he was the son of the King of Thebes. Then Oedipus realized that he killed his father and married his mother. This dramatic discovery of what happened to Oedipus was of a great influence on him. Oedipus so confused and did not know what to do. Oedipus was so angry and ashamed of him self.

Oedipus realized that what happened to him was his fate and that there was nothing else for him to do. Therefore, he gathered himself and decided to leave the town and let Creon lead it. However, before he left town, he spent some time with his daughters. Oedipus did not over act or committed a bad thing like his mother who killed herself when things started to fall into place. Oedipus thought that the best thing for him to do is to leave town and go away to somewhere that no one can see him.

In conclusion, I think that Oedipus was heroic at the end of the story. I think that he followed the God s rule and conducted the search for the killer of the King. Oedipus tried to help his people and ended up helping them. Although he helped his people, he ended up hurting himself by finding out about the ugly truth of who really he was. I pity Oedipus and think that he could have prevented much of what happened to him such as killing his father and marrying his mother if he knew about the truth before it happened.

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