Blog #6

In the play of “Oedipus the King” Oedipus had the free will in choosing his own destiny. Even though the oracle has told him the prophecy that he would kill his own father and later marry his mother, it was his fault that the prophecy has been fulfilled. Oedipus listened to the oracle and flees from his town to avoid killing the person who he thought was his father. He had rushed into an old man and he wasn’t even sure if the person he fled from was his real father. So he killed the old man not knowing he had killed the king of the town he is now entering and also killing his father. He was not certain of whom his father truly was but he goes out and kills someone that is old enough to be his father. “With all these indications of the truth here in my grasp, I cannot end this now.”I passed close by a spot where three roads meet, and in that place I met a herald and a horse-drawn carriage. Inside there was a man like you described. The guide there tried to force me off the road and the old man, too, got personally involved. In my rage, I lashed out at the driver who was shoving me aside. The old man seeing me walking past him in the carriage, kept his eye on me, and with this double whip struck me on my head, right here on top. Well, I retaliated in good measure I hit him a quick blow with the staff I held and knocked him from the his carriage to the road. He lay there on his back. Then I killed them all " (970). He claims that he had killed him in this part due to his amount of rage. It was avoidable but he killed someone who was able to be his father. Later finding out that it is his father he had also found out that he had married his mother which has caused him to fulfill the prophecy that both Oedipus and Jocasta thought had been avoided.