lton agrees that “the human mind played no part at all in the whole business” (176). Three oracles are introduced. An oracle is a communication pathway between mortals and the gods. The first oracle predicts a murder. Laius, the king of Thebes, hears the prophecy that his son will kill him. The second oracle predicts that Oedipus will kill his father and marry his mother. The third and final oracle states that whoever can solve the riddle of the Sphinx will win the throne of Thebes and Iocaste as his Queen. These three oracles serve as the backbone of the story. Knowing these, the audience sits back to wait the turn of events. Reading the play while knowing the oracles can be compared to watching a movie for the second time: you still think the characters will make a different decision. However, these characters are the victims of fate, and their actions have already been planned out, or have they?When the Greeks received bad prophecies, they often tried to avoid their fate through actions of their own. When Laius hears that his son will kill him, he tries to avoid it. He, along with Iocaste, pins their child’s legs together and gives him to a messenger to be disposed of on a mountain. However, out of pity for the boy, the messenger gives the baby to a shepherd of a nearby town, Corinth. Thus the boy grows up to become Oedipus. Later in his life, Oedipus learns through Apollo that he is “the man / Who should marry his own mother, shed his father’s blood / With his own hands” (3. 81-83). To avoid doing so, he leaves Corinth and the people he thinks are his parents. By doing this, he walks right into fate. According to Bernard Knox, “the prophecy allows for the independent action of the recipient; the fulfillment of the prophecy results from the combination of the prophecy with the recipient’s free action” (39). Laius, Iocaste, and Oedipus all try to avoid their fate...
