Who Is To Blame For Oedipus's Downfall
The Fall of Oedipus Rex
Seeing a man of great wealth and prestige plummet to societal rock bottom and lose all that he has, in only an hour and a half, was a common sighting for many ancient Greeks due to the heavy influence of Aristotelian tragedy on the theater. The unlucky victim in Oedipus Rex is none other than King Oedipus himself. As the story goes, Oedipus is cursed at birth by the gods to grow up and murder his own father and sleep with his mother. Without a doubt, he ends up committing these horrible atrocities, since what the gods say goes; the real question is, are they at fault for what happened? While the readers certainly may empathize with Oedipus’ drastic downfall, the blame truly lies on his shoulders. Because amidst his …show more content…
The gods did not force him to kill his real father or marry his mother; in fact, they never even directly interfere with his life. Considering Oedipus is man of high intelligence and wit, who knows the gods’ foreshadowing about his life, a wise course of action would be to never kill a man or sleep with anyone older than himself. Yet he takes no preventative measures. Oedipus simply does not believe that anything bad could happen to him, and his own hubris leads him to believe that he is above others’ warnings. In addition to filling the horrible prophesy, he makes blind judgments when told about Laius’ murder; he ends up cursing himself: “On the murderer this curse I lay (On him and all the partners in his guilt):--Wretch, may he pine in utter wretchedness!” (285). Teiresias is dead-on when he warns Oedipus, “you now weave your own doom” (539). But by this time, the king is so curious and furious that he refuses to give up until the guilty man is punished. Oedipus has plenty of opportunities along the way to change the course of his fate, but his actions alone— motivated by arrogance, ignorance, and curiosity— cause his
Seeing a man of great wealth and prestige plummet to societal rock bottom and lose all that he has, in only an hour and a half, was a common sighting for many ancient Greeks due to the heavy influence of Aristotelian tragedy on the theater. The unlucky victim in Oedipus Rex is none other than King Oedipus himself. As the story goes, Oedipus is cursed at birth by the gods to grow up and murder his own father and sleep with his mother. Without a doubt, he ends up committing these horrible atrocities, since what the gods say goes; the real question is, are they at fault for what happened? While the readers certainly may empathize with Oedipus’ drastic downfall, the blame truly lies on his shoulders. Because amidst his …show more content…
The gods did not force him to kill his real father or marry his mother; in fact, they never even directly interfere with his life. Considering Oedipus is man of high intelligence and wit, who knows the gods’ foreshadowing about his life, a wise course of action would be to never kill a man or sleep with anyone older than himself. Yet he takes no preventative measures. Oedipus simply does not believe that anything bad could happen to him, and his own hubris leads him to believe that he is above others’ warnings. In addition to filling the horrible prophesy, he makes blind judgments when told about Laius’ murder; he ends up cursing himself: “On the murderer this curse I lay (On him and all the partners in his guilt):--Wretch, may he pine in utter wretchedness!” (285). Teiresias is dead-on when he warns Oedipus, “you now weave your own doom” (539). But by this time, the king is so curious and furious that he refuses to give up until the guilty man is punished. Oedipus has plenty of opportunities along the way to change the course of his fate, but his actions alone— motivated by arrogance, ignorance, and curiosity— cause his