King Oedipus, aware that a horrible curse has befallen Thebes, sends his brother-in-law, Creon, to seek the advice of Apollo. Creon informs Oedipus that the curse will be lifted if the murderer of Laius, the former king, is found and prosecuted. Laius was murdered many years ago at a crossroads.
Oedipus dedicates himself to the discovery and prosecution of Laius’s murderer. Oedipus subjects a series of unwilling citizens to questioning, including a blind prophet. Teiresias, the blind prophet, informs Oedipus that Oedipus himself killed Laius. (440-444) “You have been living unaware in the most hideous intimacy with your nearest and most loving kin, immersed in evil that you cannot see”.
This news really bothers Oedipus, but his wife Jocasta tells him not to believe in prophets—they’ve been wrong before. As an example, she tells Oedipus about how she and King Laius had a son who was prophesied to kill Laius and sleep with her. Well, she and Laius had the child killed, so obviously that prophecy didn’t come true, right?
Jocasta’s story doesn’t comfort Oedipus. As a child, an old man told Oedipus that he was adopted, and that he would eventually kill his biological father and sleep with his biological mother. Not to mention, Oedipus once killed a man at a crossroads, which sounds a lot like the way Laius died.
Jocasta urges Oedipus not to look into the past any further, but he stubbornly ignores her. Oedipus goes on to question a messenger and a shepherd, both of whom have information about how Oedipus was abandoned as an infant and adopted by a new family. In a moment of insight, Jocasta realizes that she is Oedipus’s mother and that Laius was his father. Horrified at what has happened, she kills herself. Shortly thereafter, Oedipus, too, realizes that he was Laius’s murder and that he’s been married to (and having children with) his mother. In horror and despair, he gouges his eyes out and is exiled from Thebes.
(1336-1340) All! All! It all happened! It not was all true. O light! Let this be the last time I look on you. You see now What I am- the child who must not be born!
In Oedipus, we notice the tension between individual action and fate. While free choices, such as oedipus s decision to pursue knowledge of his identity, are significant. Fate is responsible of Oedipuss incest and many of the other most critical and devastating events of the play. By elevating the importance of fate, Sophocles suggest that characters cannot be fully responsible for their actions. It is difficult to blame, for example oedipus by marrying mother given his ignorance. He is a seeker of knowledge and truth. his pursuit results in ruin as Oedipus uncovers his destiny, which was better of not knowing. This suggest that knowledge is futile and limited in its ability to bring happiness to those who seek it. We can get a lesson from it, by noticing that it is not everything in life need to be questioned or to be answered.