Often in our lives we feel drowned under the uncertainty of life, not knowing when or how we got to where we are. Tragedy hits us, and we feel as if we are powerless to control our fate. The world seems like an open void of chaos, and events seem disorganized and random. Such is the course of what some call inevitable fate, an existential dread that looms over man.
This "inevitable fate" occupied the minds of Greek thinkers. Sophocles was one of them, and in his work "Oedipus Rex" Sophocles tells the tale of a man named Oedipus who tried to escape his destiny. This story ultimately ends in tragedy, as Oedipus is unable to escape what was decreed by what Greeks called the Fates. Instead of escaping his fate, Oedipus blindly runs into it. "Oedipus Rex" is described by some as Sophocles best play, and the father of Western Philosophy does not disappoint.
The play is set in Thebes at a time when plague devastates the city. Oedipus, who was made king just a few years before, discovers from an oracle that the wrath of the gods will not be withheld until the killer of the previous king has been brought to justice. Oedipus swears to bring death to the murderer, but soon after this a priest from Thebes’s oracle accuses Oedipus himself as the killer. Enraged by such an accusation, Oedipus banishes the priest from his presence and sets out to find who murdered the king.
Over time, Oedipus slowly begins to find more and more evidence that he is the killer. Oedipus remembers years before hearing a prophecy that he was destined to kill his father and marry his mother. Oedipus, who was living with Polybus, ran away, and on his way to Thebes kills a group of men outside the city. Things get worst when after finding out about Polybus death, Oedipus learns that Polybus was in fact no his own father. He learns from the same messenger that in the past the messenger, being a shepherd, received from another shepherd baby Oedipus, whom he gave to Polybus. At this point Jocasta, Oedipus's wife and mother, finds out the truth. She leaves, and Oedipus finds the shepherd and confirms the truth: Oedipus is the son of the slain king, and of Jocasta.
Oedipus falls into a fit of overwhelming agony and madness. He runs into the palace to find that Jocasta had hung herself with her own hair. Oedipus removes her golden brooches and blinds himself with them so he will not have to witness the prophecy's results. Oedipus, bloodied and torn by personal guilt, exiles himself from Thebes and gives Creon, his uncle, the crown.
There are many interesting ways this play has influenced philosophical and psychological thought. One of Freud's major theories, the Oedipus complex, is inspired from the “Oedipus Rex”. Freud believed that the unconscious mind of man wishes to have sexual relations with his own mother, but his father prevents him. Freud was also heavily invested in dreams, and one line from the play tells us why Freud used the term Oedipus complex. Jocasta states after trying to convince Oedipus that the prophecy is false that "How oft it chances that in dreams a man has wed his mother! He who least regards such brainsick fantasies lives most at ease."
The main theme Sophocles addresses, however, is that of fate. As the play moves forward there is a sense of inevitable doom which plagues both the audience and Oedipus. Secretly, everyone knows the ending, and despite this, one is horrified and wishes to resist it until the end. As more and more evidence shows up the conclusion becomes more evidently clear, and a sense of agony takes hold. The truth is unbearable, and one can't help but feel sympathy for Oedipus. As the truth come out, Oedipus can only despair his existential fate. Oedipus curses his own existence, stating it would be better if he had never been born. "By my own sentence am cut off, condemned by my own proclamation 'gainst the wretch ... Cithaeron, why didst thou not take and slay me? Then I never had shown to men the secret of my birth."
Sophocles clearly understands man's predicament on earth. Sophocles was no believer in the Greek gods (he was a Deist), and often he pondered the fate of men. Life can seem so random and chaotic, yet we believe we are the masters of our fate, the captains of our souls, as Ernest Henley put. Sophocles seems to think otherwise. Oedipus was decreed by an oracle what would be his destiny, it often seems that life does the same to us. When tragedy hits, how could we have known? How can we prevent suffering in our lives? Natural disasters, sudden deaths and financial turmoil can quickly render someone helpless in the face of an infinite universe. Oedipus finds this out only when he is blind and his parents dead. How are we to live in such a universe? Sophocles offers no answer in "Oedipus Rex", but clearly displays what it means to drown in the existential nightmare we call fate.
