Donnie Darko vs. Oedipus Rex

Greek tragedies were often seen as the foundation to literature not only for the Greeks but also on a universal scale as well. Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex was one of the more infamous tales because of its provocative and unorthodox nature. The tragedy features a man on a quest to prevent the events of his prophesized life from coming to fruition. The key components of fate, destiny and time can be paralleled to the cult classic film Donnie Darko. In the movie, Donnie suffers from predictions of the future in his own variation of time travel, as a repercussion he has been “chosen” to rectify the past in order to preserve what is to come.
Between the two pieces of text, destiny and fate greatly affect the outcome for both of the tragically flawed characters. In Oedipus Rex, the titular character is ill-fated right from birth after his life was prophesied as being incestuous and macabre. A key component in all tragedies is kismet which connects to the inevitability of certain destinies. Oedipus was taken away from is biological parents in order to avoid the outcome in which he soon resides with his foster family. In an ironic twist of fate, he finally gets wind of his prophecy which prompts him to run away and actually cross paths with the king and queen, “it was my fate to defile my mother's bed, to bring forth to men a human family that people could not bear to look upon, to murder the father who engendered me,” (791-793). Everything was unavoidable, like the Tangent Universe that took place in Donnie Darko; Donnie deviated from his original path but still wound up fulfilling his destiny of self-sacrifice. There are a myriad of elements that make the very notion of both pieces seem wholly unrealistic but somehow the end result of each leads to heartache and desolation. Time is a fickle and unpredictable aspect that is extremely subjective in addition to being susceptible to outside forces. In Donnie Darko, the very concept of time is so chaotic and is