If Oedipus is to posses a hamartia, then he must have the free will to make choices and must not be just a victim of fate. The choices that he makes during the course of the play are what lead to the fulfillment of the oracle. Oedipus is responsible for fulfilling the oracle. He is not, however, a wicked man being punished by the gods for his guilt. He certainly has no control over the oracle that was declared by Apollo years before he was born. Apollo states through his oracle that Jocasta and Laius will have a son who will kill his father and marry his mother. Jocasta and Laius, in an effort to avoid the fulfillment of the prophecy, pin their baby's feet together and abandon him on a mountainside. This is the first step in the fulfillment of the prophecy. Obviously, abandoning a baby is a sin. If they had not tried to avoid the prophecy and had raised the baby as their own son in a loving home the prophecy would not have been fulfilled. This is an example of pride against the gods because Jocasta and Laius believed that they could prevent what the gods had foretold. Oedipus, however, played no part in the sins of his parents.
Archer 3.
Oedipus is rescued by a herdsman and given to the childless King and Queen of Corinth to raise as their own. Oedipus grows to be a man believing that he is the son of Polybus and Merope, unknowing of the oracle Apollo had given his birth parents. Oedipus does not question his paternity until he is taunted at a banquet that he is not his father's son. He journey's to Pytho to learn the truth of his paternity. He receives no answer to this question, but is told that he is doomed to kill his father and then marry his mother. Oedipus is determined to avoid this fate. He sets out in the direction of Thebes. In a sudden quarrel at a crossroad, Oedipus kills an older man and his men, except for one who flees. When he reaches Thebes, he solves the riddle of the Sphinx, freeing the city from her grasp.
In ancient Greek mythology and literature, especially as delineated by Euripides' senior colleague, Sophocles in his Oedipus Tyrannos, a hero was an individual who possessed a firmness of purpose more intense and steadfast than that of ordinary people. ... Ajax triumphs but he is dead; Oedipus wins, but he is blind; Antigone achieves victory after she hanged herself. ...
Thomas Cahill's Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea, depicts the culture of ancient Greece. It describes the Greece's way of life from politics to art. I intend to prove that Greek works, both written and non-written, can inspire people to think differently and the total effects these works had as a whole in ...
