The Predestined Fate Of Oedipus the King

Predestined Fate of Oedipus

In ancient Greek society they believed that ones life is predestined and that ones fate is sealed. What is meant to occur will happen no matter what that person does. In "Oedipus Rex" Oedipus' fate is doomed from his birth because of the actions of his ancestors. Unlike Oedipus most people today don't believe in predestined fate. People can be all they want to be regardless of their background or the circumstances of their lives. However some people don't realize that they are in charge of their own live and can make conscience decisions to change the course of their lives.

One of Oedipus' ancestors committed a terrible act of rape some time ago.

This behavior obviously didn't please the gods and thus they punished Oedipus' family for several generations. When Iocaste and Laios gave birth to Oedipus they were aware of the prophecy that he would one day kill his father and then marry his mother. With this in mind they tried to have Oedipus killed to avoid this horrible fate. However they couldn't kill him themselves because murder of their own son would get the gods angry all over again. So they tried to get some one to take Oedipus out to the mountains and let him die of natural causes. Some people might argue that they are still indirectly responsible for the death but apparently the Greeks only considered it bad if you were directly responsible for the act of murder. The problem is that this person never left Oedipus on the mountains as he was instructed to and therefore Oedipus never died. So Iocaste and laios go on living worry free thinking that they outsmarted the gods and avoided their horrible fate, but it will catch up with them soon enough. They can't change their fate, there is no way to avoid what the gods already decided will happen. No matter what Iocaste and Laios tried to do to avoid their fate the gods would do something to make sure that it didn't change their final fate.

Many of us today would argue that this is very unfair. Oedipus didn't do anything to deserve this type of punishment however he will pay for the crime of his ancestors. And there is nothing that he can do to prevent this from happening. He is basically cursed for life. His fate is sealed.

Unlike Oedipus, we can cha...

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...ry often it's peoples mentality that makes them think that they can't be any more than they are right now. They start to tell themselves that they will never amount to anything more than what they are right now. They start to limit their options because they feel that they aren't smart enough or talented enough to follow through with their ideas.

It's this sort of thinking that makes people think that their fate is predestined, when in reality they have many options open to them. And many different ways to change their lives. Instead of telling themselves "Oh I'll never be able to do that" they should tell themselves "Sure, I can do that if I put my mind to it".

Oedipus' fate was sealed. Unfortunately for him he was cursed from birth.

There was nothing he could do that would change the final outcome of his life.

Our fate, however, isn't sealed. We can change the course of our lives and we can change our destiny. Nothing is certain. We should take advantage of this by making the most of our lives. We shouldn't just go with the flow and take what is given to us. We should keep trying to achieve more and more until we reach our goals.