Oedipus Mother

In Oedipus we see a man whose past crushes him. He was given a prophecy by an oracle that he would kill his father and marry his mother. When he fled he killed his birth father not knowing. When he beat the sphinx he got his birth mother as a reward (an issue for another paper) and did indeed “defile my mother's bed”. He would have had a happy life if only he stopped asking about the past. Not only that but if any of the characters had not purposefully forgot they would have found that Jocasta was Oedipus’s mother. She knew the prophecy and didn't think it odd that her husband had the same one upon him. Latter when Oedipus forced the truth out of the messenger who found him as a child he learns his mother's name Jocasta. There is still wrong
with the world but had he listened any time he was told to drop the matter he could have had a pleasant life now lost by his inability to let things go.