Oedipus Vs Dead Again Analysis

The battle of fact versus coincidence has been around since long before any of us were born. Believers argue that everything in life has brought them to their present situation while skeptics may be more reluctant to give into the notion of a predetermined fate. However, everyone questions whether or not fate might actually be true at least once in their life. At the beginning of Oedipus the King, Oedipus did not believe in fate. He thought he could escape his destiny by running away from Corinth after he discovered it was his fate to kill his father and marry his mother. Mike Church, the private detective in the movie Dead Again, is called to a catholic orphanage to assist in finding an amnesiac's family. Unknown to Oedipus and Mike, this would be the start of what both men were destined to do. Stories like Oedipus the King and Dead Again both illustrate the irony of mans struggle with predetermined fate through the eyes of a skeptic.

In both stories, the men believe they are just going about their day. Neither knew that their actions were

all leading up to what was supposed to happen all along. In an act of escaping his fate, Oedipus ironically solidifies his prophecy by leaving Corinth, and who he thought were his parents, and moving to Thebes where he would soon become king, but only after he inadvertently killed the previous king and married the queen. Likewise in Dead Again, unbeknown to Mike, the beautiful amnesiac who he now calls Grace is beginning to remember events from her past life, telling stories from the 1940's of Roman and Margaret Strauss. Mike however, is skeptical. He does not believe that this could possibly be who grace was in her past life, even after seeing pictures of the infamous couple and noticing the striking resemblance to not only Grace, but to mike too, he does not believe it could be them. But it was fate which brought them together that day at the orphanage, and it was fate that brought Oedipus to Thebes to fulfill his prophecy.
Irony is prevalent throughout the entirety of both of these stories. Once Mike gives into the theory that Grace is actually reliving the story of the Strauss's, Mike gets upset one night and forces Grace to take all of the scissors that he owns (in the story of Margaret and Roman, Roman is said to have killed Margaret with scissors). Mike, unfortunately, does not know that he is the one who used to be Margaret and Grace was once Roman. So ironically, Mike gave the tools that once committed murder to the person who, before, was the murderer. In Oedipus the King, Oedipus was determined to find his predecessors murderer, so he called on a blind prophet as guidance. When the prophet stated that it was actually Oedipus who was the murderer of the king, Oedipus lashed out and called the prophet a blind fool, when in reality it was actually Oedipus who was blind to the truth.
The struggle of choosing whether or not to believe fate is never ending, and as irony would have it, as soon as one makes up their mind, something happens to bring them right back to indecision.

In Oedipus the King, as soon as Oedipus believed he could escape his prophecy is when fate was set. He started the story as a nonbeliever, only to have that notion shattered when he realized what he had unknowingly done. Likewise, Mike would not believe that he was somehow involved with the past lives of Margaret and Roman Strauss, but as fate would have it, in a fit of anger leads him to discovering who he truly was many years ago, and now he cannot deny his fate. Both Mike and Oedipus struggled with coming to terms with their predetermined fate. The irony that brings them both to the final realization, the realization that no matter what they do their fate cannot be escaped, is what truly intertwines Oedipus the King and Dead

Again.