Fate, defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, it is "the development of events outside a person's control, regarded as predetermined by a supernatural power." Although partly true, it is not entirely accurate in Sophocles' Oedipus the King. In the story, Oedipus is shown, on multiple occasions, as someone who, through his choices, seals his own fate. Throughout the story, Sophocles repeatedly shows that Oedipus' fate lies in the hands of, none other than, himself. Through his choices of leaving his adoptive parents, to his sheer determination, to his promise to his people, Oedipus' actions, unknowingly to him, can be seen as the sole factor in determining his fate, in turn, stating that he did, very well, deserve the outcome he brought upon himself. .
Oedipus' decision to leave his adoptive parents, Polybus and Merope, is the first in a string of choices that he makes to seal his fate. When Oedipus learns of the prophecy that he is to kill his father and marry his mother, he not wanting to "think to see fulfilled the scandals of ill prophecies of [him], [he] fled, an exile" (29). By leaving his parents, who, unbeknownst to him, are actually his adoptive parents, Oedipus believes that he has avoided fate and disproved the prophecy. However, because Polybus and Merope are not Oedipus' biological parents, Oedipus has not, in fact, avoided fate, instead, he is now wandering down the exact path that will end in him fulfilling the prophecy. Had he not left home, and remained with Polybus and Merope, his chances of bypassing the prophecy would have been higher and in his favor. .
Oedipus' second action that determines his fate is his sheer determination to find who killed King Laius, in hopes to disprove his own suspicions that he himself is the killer. He refuses to let go of the matter even when his wife, Jocasta, begs him to. "For Heaven's sake, if you care for your own life, don't seek it! I am sick and that's enough! (38), to which Oedipus replies, "I will not hearken – not to know the whole" (38).
