In Oedipus Rex, Oedipus has fulfilled his terrible prophecy long ago, but without knowing it. When she finds out otherwise, she kills herself. Does he have free will-the ability to choose his own path-or is everything in life predetermined? Jocasta argues that the oracles are a sham because she thinks the prediction that her son would kill her husband never came to pass.

This raises a question at the heart of the play: does Oedipus have any choice in the matter? He ends up killing his father and marrying his mother without knowing it-in fact, when he is trying to avoid doing these very things. Laius, Jocasta, and Oedipus all work to prevent the prophecies from coming to pass, but their efforts to thwart the prophecies are what actually bring the prophecies to completion. The second is the prophecy that Oedipus received that he would kill his father and marry his mother.

The first is the prophecy received by King Laius of Thebes that he would have a son by Queen Jocasta who would grow up to kill his own father. Some of this tension is plain to see in Oedipus Rex, which hinges on two prophecies. During the fifth century B.C.E., however, when Sophocles was writing his plays, intellectuals within Athenian society had begun to question the legitimacy of the oracles and of the traditional gods. Oracles, priests who resided at the temples of gods-such as the oracle to Apollo at Delphi-were also believed to be able to interpret the gods' visions and give prophecies to people who sought to know the future. Prophets or seers, like blind Tiresias, saw visions of things to come. The ancient Greeks believed that their gods could see the future, and that certain people could access this information.

Free will quotes