Oedipus Rex Fate Vs Free Will Essay

Does character determine fate, or is fate responsible for shaping one’s character? In Sophocles’ dramatic tragedy, Oedipus Rex, character plays a very important role in determining the protagonist’s fate. The extent to which this occurs is difficult to conclude, for during the play it seems character isn’t the only factor that led to the final result. Although character can be influenced by external circumstances, a situation’s outcome will be arrived to as a result of the decisions an individual’s personality has predestined him to make.
Aspects of Oedipus’ character are presented to us almost from the very beginning of the play. His impetuosity, the swiftness of his thoughts and actions, is imminent from the moment in which the citizens of Thebes come to him requesting that he do something about the plague. The fact that he already has sent Creon in search for answers to
In blinding himself, Oedipus is condemning himself never to see the world again, as now that he has discovered the truth, “sight brought no delight” (Sophocles 30). Taking his sense of sight is, however, the only one of his spontaneous actions that hasn’t been previously fated. If becoming blind was part of his fate, Oedipus was unaware of it, and this lack of knowledge therefore made it impossible for him to try to keep it from taking place.
He blinds himself willingly, of his own hand, just as he killed King Laius, or married Jocasta. Oedipus ignores the fact that this action was part of his predetermined fate, and if this was the case fulfils it unknowingly. He does so not to escape from it, but is led directly to it by character; by his personality’s reaction to the outcome of his situation. This action is consequently a complex one for it is part of Oedipus’ fate, but was never fated to occur as all others