Ans:

“King Oedipus” is one of the most outstanding tragedies of Sophocles. Oedipus is the protagonist of the tragedy. In this play, fate plays a major role in bringing about the hero’s tragedy or suffering, and free will is also responsible. If we analyze some key points, it will become clear. Important events in the play are predetermined by fate.

The Oracle told King Laius and Queen Jocasta, Oedipus’ parents, that the child would kill his own father and marry his mother. As soon as Jocasta gave birth to a son. To avoid this bad prophecy, Laius and Jocasta abandoned the child to be killed.

Laius bound the child in chains, handed it over to a trusted servant, and gave strict orders to kill the child. But the servant, out of pity, handed the child over to a Corinthian king named Polybus. That child grew up to be the son of King Polybus and Queen Merope. And named him Oedipus. Then fate strikes again and this time predicts that Oedipus will kill his father and marry his mother. Considering Polybus and Merope as his real parents, he is determined to leave the kingdom forever to avoid fate.

But on the way, he killed Laius unknowingly. After arriving in Thebes, he encounters the Sphinx and solves the riddle uttered by the monster. Oedipus becomes the liberator of the state and becomes King then he married Jocasta who was his real mother. Thus, fate triumphs over human effort. Oedipus performed these disastrous acts not only unknowingly, but also unintentionally. Though he tried his best, he could not escape fate.

On the other hand, Oedipus is not quite a perfect man, he has some defects of character. If he is not hot-tempered, he would not kill an old man like his father. Similarly, if he had been a little more cautious, he might have hesitated to marry a woman old enough to be his mother. Some actions are fate bound but what he does on the stage from first to last, he does as a free agent condemning Tiresias and Creon, following him, imagining him.

Tiresias, Jocasta, and Thebes shepherd, each, in turn, tried to stop him but he was determined to solve the problem of his own parentage. His self-blinding and self-banishment are equally free acts of choice. The real tragedy lies in the discovery. After blinding himself, Oedipus immediately wants to banish himself from the kingdom but Creon insists that he not do so, until he is absolutely sure that it was God’s will. It proves that he was nothing but a victim of fate.

In conclusion, it can be said that fate surrounds Oedipus like the tentacles of an octopus. However, everything Oedipus does on stage he does as a free agent. Yet some of his actions were bound by fate. Which leads him to his ultimate destruction. So it can be said without a doubt that fate and character are responsible for Oedipus’ suffering.