Free Will In Oedipus The King

Discuss the treatment of free will/ and fate in any two plays you have studied

Fate can be described as something being destined for someone, while free will is the ability to act at one’s own discretion without the use of fate or gods. Both fate and free-will is portrayed in the following plays Oedipus and M. In Oedipus, free will is expressed in certain situations that would later determine the outcome of what is destined to be for him. On the other hand, in Medea, she uses her fate to her advantage by using her free-will to exploit others in order to get to what’s destined for her. These two concepts came from greek mythology, where in Greece the mortals believed that the fates were controlled by the Gods. In order to find out their
Oedipus wanted to find out the truth and wouldn't stop or let anything get in his way. You could argue and say due to Oedipus stubbornness and drive for knowledge he brought his fate upon himself. “The truth? Whats the truth to you? Youre blind all over, ear, mind , as well as eyes” (Oedipus, pg17), Oedipus mocks Teiresias about his blindness when it is himself who can't see what his actions are doing, this quote is ironic because later on Oedipus actually becomes blind. Throughout the play Oedipus is on a quest to find out the truth however when he receives information about the truth from others he turns his head and decides to ignore it. While reading Oedipus it reminded me about Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory about the unconscious mind where we have three different levels , the ID , ego and the super ego. We can see that Oedipus has the ID level throughout the play {the id is the personality component made up of unconscious psychic energy that works to satisfy basic urges, needs and desires}. Because when fellow acquaintances came to Oedipus to share what they had heard we would simply ignore them and turn them
Throughout the play we see Medea commit terrible crimes however we seem to emphasise with her, is this because she was a delt a bad hand when Jason left her? You could argue that the play became a tragedy because jason left Medea which left her heartbroken seeking revengeance. {We are biologically inclined to want and need to understand their pain.} This quote is very interesting because most of the time we do tend to feel sorry for the bad guy instead of feeling hatred towards them. “Medea: Go, my sons, into the halls of wealth; down on your knees and beg her – this new wife of our father's (161)” Medea sends her children knowing that they will not come back alives, here we see that Medea jeopardizes her sons destiny's so that she can get revenge on Jason, we begin to see Medeas real character come out again and we are no longer feeling pity towards