Free Will In Sophocles Oedipus Rex

There has been a long standing philosophical debate on the notion of whether humans have free will, in which they are able to do as they please, or if everything is already predetermined, and humans have no control over the events in their lives. In Sophocles’ Athenian tragedy, Oedipus Rex, the plot revolves around the tension between one’s individual action and one’s fate, which one is unable to control. However in the play, Sophocles makes it evident that Oedipus, the protagonist, has no control over the devastating events that pertain to his live but rather external forces, such as fate and the power of the gods/goddesses, are responsible.
By stressing the importance and seriousness of one’s fate, Sophocles suggests that people cannot
be blamed for their actions nor can they evade their fate, and by using that logic in the case of Oedipus, it makes it very difficult to condemn him for killing his father and marrying his own mother. Especially, when he embodies Aristotle’s qualities of a “tragic hero,” by not only being a man of noble stature, but also good and fine. Throughout the play, Oedipus continues to prove that he is a good man by exiling himself in Thebes, because an oracle told him that he “should know [his] mother's flesh, and with [his] own hand spill [his] father's blood,” (57) and his fear of hurting the people he loves the most lead him to flee the city he grew up in and never see his parents in order to protect them from such a devastating fate. And, when he stumbles upon Thebes, he takes the initiative to “[sweep] away the Sphinx’s song” (2) and set the people of Thebes free, even though he had no connection to the city and he knew the consequence of solving the Sphinx's riddle incorrectly was death. Also, when he realizes that the plague that has been placed upon his people is due to not finding Laius’ murderer, he personally takes responsibility and makes it his mission to find the murderer in order to help his people, which is “true to his type,” since he is king and he is responsible for the people he governs over. This also exemplifies his consistent character trait of being morally good.
His characterization as a morally good person allows him to invoke not only pity but fear from the audience, because humans have a very subjective view and if such a disastrous tale was able to happen to a good noble man, it could certainly happen to everyday people.
However, his very nature of being good leads him to his “hamartia” or mistake, which is still on par with the traits of a tragic hero, because he unintentionally is at fault for his own downfall, though mostly due out of lack of knowledge. Since he believed that Polybus and Merope were his actual parents, Oedipus ran from his home to not allow the oracle’s prophecy to become true. Nonetheless that very action leads him to carry out the prophecy that he so desperately wished to evade. Even as Oedipus starts to piece together the very truth that leads to his demise, the people around him warn him that he should not hear the truth, yet due to his good character and vow to find Laius’ murderer in order to clear out the “darkness” that has befallen the city, he pleads that “it needs [to] be [heard]” (70). This makes it evident that Oedipus’ actions though on their own without context are crimes, it is his very ignorance which allows him- a good man- to commit such horrendous acts, because he is willing to gain knowledge that many around him know will bring about his downfall in order for his people to find peace and
health. The cause-and-effect chain that Sophocles continues throughout the play, as seen in the previous paragraph. In which Oedipus does an action in order to sidestep his fate when in actuality the result is the exact opposite of what was desired. Stresses the notion of determinism and the fact that despite the actions that man believes to be of his own free will, he has no control and every action is dictated by an external force which controls the outcome of his life and will lead him to his predestined fate. After stabbing his own eyes out in disgust, when he realizes the sins he has committed by murdering his father and marrying his mother, Oedipus vows that now that he has blinded himself he “shall [never] see [himself] nor the anguish nor the sins” (75) his ignorance has led him to commit. Though he is the one to physically blinded himself , he states that the god Apollo was the one who blinded him, the one who had “[p]lanned these things upon me evilly, evilly, dark things and full of blood,” (78) and only in his state of blindness was Oedipus able to finally see that his constant fleeing from his fate only angered the gods and would have never changed his fate, because he has no control over his own life.
Sophocles’ tragedy of Oedipus Rex clearly explains that the notion of man being a free agent is preposterous, but that rather man is not responsible for his actions and cannot be blamed for any of them because external forces control his life. In this tragedy Sophocles makes it evident that no matter how man tries to evade his fate, he will never outrun it, and the case of Oedipus is told in a specific way (cause-and-effect chain) that leads the audience to feel pity and fear. However, unlike the protagonist in Sophocles’ story, the audience has hope for themselves, because they are able to use Oedipus’ struggles as an example of what happens when one tries to go against their fate and not make such mistakes.