Oedipus

Fate | Free Will | Quote: “Shall I expel this poison in the bloodFor whoso slew that the king might have a mind”This quote shows the presence of fate when Oedipus declares his intent to solve the murder of Laius which is expressed by the metaphor of “expelling the poison in the blood” and righting the wrong. The second part of the quote, “for whoso slew the king might have a mind to strike me too with his assassin hand” also shows the intervention of fate when Oedipus denounces the murderer in front of his citizens when he himself is the murderer of Laius. This is a clear example of fate’s intervention in the life of the tragic Oedipus. | Quote:“Oh, as thou carest for thy life, give o’er this quest. Enough the anguish I endure.This quote shows the free will exercised by Oedipus in this case as he ignores this plea by Jocasta to stop his investigation into the murder of Laius and his own parentage. Oedipus’s choice in this situation to ignore Jocasta’s plea to stop the investigation can be thus seen as proof that Oedipus’s tragic ending was in a way , his own doing.Consider the fact that if Oedipus had stopped at his quest for the truth and heeded the advice of Jocasta, would anyone be the wiser of the truth? If Oedipus had not pursued the truth, it might have prevented the calamity that eventually resulted in the tragic ending of Oedipus.This ties in with one of the themes of the play which is a voluntary blindness to the truth. | Quote: “To twit me with my blindness- thou has eyes,Yet see’st not in what misery thou art fallen.”This quote is from the scene where Oedipus is questioning Teiresias as to the details of the muderer. In this scene, Oedipus is denied the truth by Teiresias who does not answer to Oedipus’s questions and instead as a result is taunted by Oedipus in a feeble attempt by the latter to extract the truth from the former.In this case, we see the foreshadowing of Oedipus’s future by that of Teiresias. “Thou has eyes, yet see’st not in what