This study will examine the role of fate in the life of Oedipus in Sophocles' play Oedipus the King. Oedipus himself is largely unaware of his true situation in life and the role he has played in bringing that situation about. Is Oedipus doomed because of his anger, pride, and obsessive need to find the truth? Or is he doomed because the gods decided before he was even born that he would live the tragic life he lived, including killing his father and marrying his mother? The position of this study will be that Oedipus was predestined to experience the tragedies of his life. The theme, therefore, carries the message that individuals are not free from their fates, but must come to accept whatever destiny has dealt them.
Oedipus is ignorant of essential facts about himself and his life, and his ignorance of such facts leads to disaster. Oedipus does not know that he has killed his father and married his mother. The question must be asked whether Oedipus---the king at the top of his power as we meet him, but headed for tragedy---could have altered his fate if he had known the facts on which his life was built. Sophocles is writing in an era which believed that the gods mysteriously ran human lives. Oedipus had no way of knowing he had killed his father and married his mother---until it was too late and disaster was assured. It would seem, then, that Oedipus is helpless to alter his fate. One cannot change something when he does not know what it is that he is to avoid doing or when he has already committed the acts which will deliver him to disaster. If Oedipus has no chance of saving himself because he does not have the essential facts about his life until it is too late, then his only other chance to avoid an inevitable destiny is to be saved by the gods. However, if we consider that fate in Oedipus' times means having one's life mysteriously controlled by the gods, and if we understand that the gods have created Oedipus as a tragic ...