s, but in reality, their actions only lead them closer to their fates being sealed.Do these characters have free will? They are in control of their actions. For example, Laius and Iocaste give up their child. They don’t have to; they could have raised the child and protected the king. They could have even killed the child themselves. Giving up the child is their own decision. Likewise, Oedipus doesn’t have to leave Corinth; he could have questioned his parents and discovered the truth. Instead, he leaves Corinth on his own free will. However, “the hero’s will is limited by fate” (Knox 3); the gods will have their divine intervention. Knox goes on to add that a play has to have some sort of proof of character free will in order to effect any excitement (5). The characters show that they have free will but their actions are really guided by the fates predicted by the gods. In other words, their actions are their own but the results of their actions appear as the interventions of the gods. It seems that no matter how they try to avoid their fate, the gods will ultimately win: “As for death, it will come whenever the Fates with their spindle decide…. For in no way is it decreed that a man may escape death…” (Guthrie, 130).Not everyone believed in the prophecies of the gods. Iocaste feels that the word of the gods should be disregarded. She believes that Laius died by the hands of a stranger rather than “at the hands of his son, as he had feared” (2.197). Since she believes that her son is long dead, she feels that Laius escaped his fate and the god’s prophecy was proven wrong. In scene two (324-29), she tries to explain to Oedipus the reasons behind her disbelief in the prophecies:He [the shepherd] cannot ever show that Laos’ deathFulfilled the oracle: for Apollo saidMy child was doomed to kill him; and my child-Poor baby!- It was my child that died...
