first.No. From now on, where oracles are concerned,I would not waste a second thought on any.Iocaste adds, “This is what prophets and prophecies are worth! / Have no dread of them” (2.198-99). However, in due time, the audience, along with Iocaste and Oedipus, will see that the prophecies have already come true and that the gods are no longer interfering; the damage has already been done.According to Barron’s Booknotes, an online literary resource, the position of fate “is clearly shown in the role that the gods play in revealing the truth of the oracle’s prophecies to Oedipus.” No matter how honest a life he tries to lead, Oedipus is destined to commit patricide and incest. Oedipus tries to avoid committing the crimes and offending his family by leaving Corinth. He is a good king to Thebes: he saves them from the Sphinx and promises to save them from the current plague. However, the gods feel that it is not enough and Oedipus must suffer his fate.Harold Donohue questions “the extent to which western culture is dependent on this notion of fate.” He brings up the situation of Freud’s theory of the Oedipus Complex. If Oedipus “is not fated to kill his father and marry his mother,” what basis would Freud’s theory have? This proves the dependency of fate to the western world. Much modern philosophical thought has been based on the very idea of fate and it’s role. When asked about the ability to have free will, Donohue responds saying that Oedipus “is punished for his free-thinking and rationalism, and the ‘accidents’ of the plot are actually instances of the naked will of Apollo (rather than of an impartial fate).” In other words, Oedipus is punished deliberately by the gods, rather than be fate, when he tries to solve the crime of Laius’ murder. Donohue also says “what a modern audience would see as an accident, anc...
