Oedipus the King; Fate in the telling.

Well we just read Oedipus The King last night in Seminar. Pretty much all we talked about was Fate, free will, and Divine Ruling.

Does Oedipus have any choice in his matters? Does it matter what he does? He tries so hard to avoid his impious fate but it doesn't work and he is condemned to kill his father and sleep with his mother.

That brought us to another question; did Jocasta know all along? Her character is vastly different from that of Oedipus, and seems to accept her fate rather than fight against it. Fate takes advantage of this by making her fulfill her fate (sleeping with her son) if she doesn't fight against it. Her passivity and Oedipus's combative nature both accomplish the same goal: fulfillment of Fate.

What a messy question, Fate is. Do our choices make any difference? Is there a personified Fate up in the heavens dictating our lives? Is there a god who plans out our lives and we fulfill that plan regardless of our choices? I don't really have answers to these questions yet. Well, that's not really a surprise. I almost never have answers to seminar questions. Questions raised in seminar are ones with which to be wrestled for the rest of our lives. I am still pondering over forms, the Republic, death, the philosophic life, and the summum bonum. I don't have any answers yet. Perhaps at some point I will gain a few.

Why do we admire Oedipus and feel nothing but pity and even contempt for Jocasta? Is it because Oedipus tries so hard to do the right thing even if he ends up fulfiling fate? That is what I think. Oedipus is a noble man. He tries desperately to avoid injustice and evil. It's not his fault that Apollo has dealt him this wretched hand. Even when he discovers the awful truth, he does not merely commit suicide alongside his dead wife/mother. He stays alive, blind, to learn lessons from his fate.

One last question: did Apollo do all this for a reason? Is there a reason behind Oedipus's torture, a reason that we may discover reading Oedipus at Colonus? I don't know, but I would really like to read that play on Thursday, not in April! Grr...

Well, it can't be helped. Onwards to Theaetetus!