The blind prophet in oedipus free#

In the end, as the truth dawns on him, he cries out in acceptance of the superiority of the gods: “It was Apollo, friends, it was Apollo. Neither is he a firm believer in the Oracle’s prophecy, because he thinks it is in his power to avoid it, not accepting the greater power of the gods over himself. Oedipus is also a character who shows disrespect to the blind prophet Teiresias and abuses him verbally. In Oedipus Rex, Queen Jocasta, the mother of Oedipus, is seen as a character who repeatedly doubts the prophecies of the Oracle of Delphi as well as those of Teiresias. Furthermore, the play suggests that arrogance before the gods and disbelief in prophecies is a punishable sin. Yet the sin could not remain hidden – it came face to face with Oedipus later in life and made him pay dearly for it. In the tragedy, Oedipus had killed an old man he encountered on a narrow crossroads, and thought of it as a minor incident. As a fourth argument, man often commits a sin which he considers minor and which he believes he can hide. But arrogance and impulsive action in the first instance, and the desire to assume kingship and renown in the second, drove him towards his destiny. Had Oedipus been careful enough to heed the prophecy, he would have hesitated to kill a man as old as his father, or marry a woman as old as his mother.

In other words, it is the rash and imprudent behavior of a person that hastens a dreadful end. Thirdly, fate acts in consort with human temperament to bring about man’s downfall. The tragedy of Oedipus Rex reasons that fate can deal out punishment of one man’s sins to others who are indirectly connected with him. Also, the onslaught of the plague upon the city of Thebes was again a punishment for the king’s murder, and it threatened not just the murderer but the entire Theban nation.

These two sins accounted for the misfortune that beset Laius and his son Oedipus. Therefore, when Laius abducted Pelops’ son Chrysippus and dishonored him, he not only violated the virtue of the young boy, but also showed gross ingratitude to his hospitable protector Pelops. A person may not have deserved ill-fate through his own vice, but the greater system of justice required that he should suffer for the wrongs of his predecessors. Secondly, the misfortunes brought on by fate can be a punishment for the sins of forefathers. But this very act brought him right into contact with his real parents and enabled him to unwittingly act out the prophecy. The worthlessness of human planning can also be seen in Oedipus – when he found out about the prophecy, he left his supposed parents so that he would not kill one and wed the other. But Oedipus was saved by divine intervention, and did indeed survive to finally kill his father. To prevent his fate, he ordered for Oedipus to be left alone to perish on Mount Cithaeron. King Laius had known the prophecy that a son would be born to him, who would one day kill him and marry his wife. The futility of human planning against fate is highlighted in Laius. Even if he tries to use his good judgment to out-maneuver it, he cannot prevail. In the tragedy, Sophocles makes some strong assertions about the role of fate: Firstly, man cannot escape the fate decided for him. In the play, characters that act as a medium for fate are the Oracle of Delphi and the blind prophet, Teiresias. It is the prophecy that tells both the reader and the protagonist that every subsequent action Oedipus performs is fulfilling a chain of events already predetermined for him.

In the storyline, prophecy holds a key significance – without it, the misfortunes that befall Oedipus could be wrongly interpreted as the outcomes of free will or decision. The whole plot is woven around this idea. In Oedipus Rex, the reader finds repeated allusions to the concept of fate manifesting itself through prophecy. One such place was the Oracle of Delphi, which housed a priestess known as the Pythia who could foretell the future. To him, many temples had been erected, some especially for the purpose of fortune-telling.

The blind prophet in oedipus free#