Oedipus Justice Analysis

The delay in justice can be another form of injustice. What is justice? Justice is being equal, moral, fair and right. In Sophocles, tragic play, Oedipus was not served with justice, and he didn’t deserve his punishment. In Greek times, a prophecy is believed that a son will kill his father in order to grow closer to their mother, and eventually marry them. Faced with a colossal situation in his life, Oedipus must come to understand the true meaning of justice. Through the killing of his father, and incestious marriage to his mother, rather than ending his life once he realizes that he cannot serve himself justice, he chooses a different route, and relies on the justice that the Gods will give him by accepting the consequences of what he’s
done and choosing to live past them.
Oedipus’s understanding of justice comes from his willingness to understand injustice and pursue it regardless of fear in discovering his true identity. Oedipus states that if he is the murderer of his father, he hopes the curses that he prayed on others will lay on him if he is in fact Laius’s murderer. Which is ironic, considering the fact that he said this out of hubris, thinking he is above the law, and that he is in fact not the true murderer. Injustice is served at this point, because Oedipus was a considerate ruler, but because of his ultimate fate he had to eventually kill his father and marry his mother. You cannot cheat fate in the sense that when he was born, the prophets told Laius what will happen, and even after taking extreme measures, Oedipus murdered his father. Why is this injustice? This is pure injustice because if Laius would of simply listened to the prophets, Oedipus would have never been born their son, and so he would have never been destined to kill Laius. Oedipus shouldn’t be punished for his parent’s mistakes.
An example of power forming justice from this play comes in the murder of Laius. For as long as Oedipus has power, his actions on the road to Thebes remain justified and acceptable. When he falls from his power, the murder becomes a crime when people realize the man he killed was actually, Laius, Oedipus’ father. We see that Oedipus power served as the only justice regarding this event. As Oedipus made his way to Thebes, he encountered another man on the road. This other man refused to make way for Oedipus and vise versa. Ultimately, Oedipus drove the man off the road by killing him and using his strength to do so. This act wasn’t viewed as a crime because of his position in power, however later on in the play when the murder becomes clear that it was his father that Oedipus killed and stabs his eyes out, the murder becomes a crime, and a step closer to his dark, dark fate. Oedipus doesn’t deserve this punishment, because it is Laius and Jocasta who defied the Gods and tried to change their fate because they didn’t want the prophecy to come true, and so they sent Oedipus away to be killed. His power in bringing him justice, has seemed to fail him.
For Oedipus, injustice would have to be evident in his self blinding and self exile from his home.
Once Oedipus is confided in with the horrible truth of who he actually is, Oedipus stabs his eyes, blinding himself and leaves Thebes in self- exile. His mental stability is deteriorated once he finds out that he unknowingly committed incest, and killed his father. The issue here is the issue of justice. There is little that can be done to restore justice to what has happened to Oedipus. Oedipus feels that through his own actions of blinding himself and then going into self- exile, he feels that some justice has been restored. The person who is responsible has been punished and there is a belief that what he has done will help to bring order and redemption to Thebes, since in Oedipus’ mind he believes that he has caused all of this havoc. Oedipus is an important figure because he is able to assert power to restore justice even when both elements are absent in his world. However, injustice is present in his world. Oedipus must go through self blinding and self exile in order to deal with the well-being of his mental body, his conscience rather than the well-being of his physical body, because of his parents mistake. Oedipus' actions restore the moral and ethical order to a world that seems to lack
it.
One’s life is heavily impacted by what fate hands to them, how they choose to react is not a big part, because of the fact that one’s fate is determined before they are even born, and they have absolutely no say in how their life will turn out. Oedipus is a prime example of how fate and destiny will have its way with one, no matter the extraordinary measures taken to avoid the truth. Injustice comes to anyone at any time, regardless of what is deserved. At the end of the play, Sophocles is reminding us that the universe does not play by the basic human rules of human justice, that the gods are not righteous nor are they wise, nor do they care. If a man attempts to fight his fate, he is signing the contract of his doom. The end of the play leaves the audience with a tragic scene as Oedipus carries out the punishment that he would have given any other person had they been the murderer of Laius. Maybe Sophocles is telling us that we are all Oedipus to a certain degree, or at least we all could be—especially if we don’t deserve it.