Oedipus's Struggle: Human Nature's Resistance Against the Inevitable in Sophocles's "Oedipus the King"

Sophocles's Oedipus the King, one of the Western Literature's most re-known tragic plays, the reader witnesses an ill-fated and doomed Oedipus, King of Thebes, slowly reach his fate as the one destined to kill his father, marry his mother, and start a family; yet, despite numerous warning signs from the beginning of the book, it is difficult to understand (and quite thought-provoking) as to why Oedipus, who is confronted with a mound of evidence prior to his realization and is so hellbent on finding the man who killed Laius and thus freeing his people from the deadly plague, waits so long to admit he is the one who must be ridden from the city. As one looks closer into this matter, it soon becomes quite plausible that in fact the one thing holding Oedipus back from his assertion of his fate is man's everlasting concept of hope.

Generally, when people are faced with situations that are quite disastrous to themselves, they usually hold out to hopefully hear a conclusion separate from the one they dread. Even if the evidence present points to that worst case scenario, the people involved never give up and always hold on to the hope of a miracle at the end. As a result, the truth is never fully admitted until the end is completely near and the horrible conclusion has been confirmed beyond a reasonable doubt. Innate within every individual that is born, this natural concept of hope is something that drives individuals to motivate themselves, push themselves, and stay alive, even when the odds are clearly against them and the ending is nothing other than inevitable to an outsider looking in.

Therefore, I believe the reason to which Oedipus was so stubborn in admitting to the fact he was the one who had killed is father and was, at that very time, filling out the prophecy was simply that common human notion of hope. Consumed with fear and dread, he never was able to step away from the situation and see what was going on from an unbiased, unaffected perspective, eventually ignoring the obvious evidence all around him simply because of his unstoppable hope. For example, when Teiresias first enters the story, he is regarded as a "student of mysteries, of all that that's taught and all that no man tells, secrets of Heaven and secrets of the earth" and as the only person that "can guard and save [the Thebians and their city]. (1293)" Yet, despite the honored introduction, within a few lines, Oedipus is disregarding Teiresias's information and accusing him of making it up because of a bribing scheme set up by Creon. Within only a few minutes it seems, Oedipus's opinion of Teiresias changes from one of respect and unworldly wisdom to one of hatred and disgust, simply because he does not tell what he wants to hear.

Furthermore, as this continues in similar fashion with people such as Jocasta and Creon, there is also ample evidence to suggest that, upon hearing about the Oracle's prophecy declaring that the killer of Laius should be expelled from the city, Oedipus knew it could be himself. In the beginning of the novel, as he explains to his people what he would be willing to give the person who came up and either admitted themselves as the murderer or pointed out who he was, he openly prays to the gods that "that man's life be consumed in evil and wretchedness," adding, "And as for me, this curse applies no less (1292)." Also, this occurs again as Oedipus reveals his story of leaving Corinth and coming to Thebes in hopes of outrunning the Delphi oracle's prophecy. He mentions the fact he killed a man at a place where three highways come together and that it could be Laius. As a result, he considers his involvement in the murder for the first time in the play, yet, still does not fully admit to doing it, even though there are too many coincidences to still render him innocent. Only until the messenger, the second messenger, and the shepherd arrive to tell him entirely of the prophecy he already knows does he finally decide that he must have been the one to commit the murder and that Jocasta has to be his mother. Thus, doomed to his fate and accepting his wretched existence, he runs off to the palace and later stabs his eyes out upon witnessing Jocasta's suicide.

As a result, it seems quite possible that Oedipus the King, among many other themes, also serves to give us an insight to the idea of hope and how that affects our acceptance of the inevitable. Whether dictated from a prophet or not, our fates are ultimately set in stone, but the hope that we can avoid the evil that might lie within it is a driving factor that shapes who we are as people and how we approach our problems. In the end, hope was what drove Oedipus to his gloomy blindness, so hellbent on his escape from what was his end that he had no other way to confront the pain when his fate came true and indirectly killed his mother, thus, serving as a lesson to all that hope is a double-edged sword that can shape the outcomes of our lives. (885)