Oedipus the King

Destiny and Anger

In "Oedipus the King" by Sophocles, the author uses the idea of fate and free will to explain the struggle of Oedipus's life. In the story, fate is explained as an outside supernatural force that controls life. Oedipus has a strange life story. He gets abandoned by his mother and is left to die, a different family adopts him and he ends up killing his father in a fight and gets married to his mother.

Many people believe that everyone's life has its own destiny. In other words our destiny is our fate. It could either be a good thing or a bad thing, and, for most people, a Supreme Being or God has already decided it. Destiny is a very important aspect of everybody's life. All people have their destiny predetermined for them by God before they are even born. Sometimes an individual can control what happens to him or her but only to a certain level because most events are controlled by a superior power. There are so many occurrences in life that people cannot explain. Even though people will live their destinies, they will find ways to deal with all situations and this will be through their free will.

Furthermore, Oedipus' defeat is because of his anger, which is his free will. Therefore we can say that our actions and approaches in life will affect the end result even though our destiny is already determined. When people are surrounded with anger, they begin to lose control of both their words and their actions. Everybody is born with clean conscious and everybody is born sinless. It is one's choices that lead one to the right or the wrong track. It is up to a person whether to lose control of their life or not.