Child Of Fortune In Oedipus

The Greek literature is the most famous and unique literature around the globe. The uniqueness of Greece literature becomes obvious due to the imaginative ideas which nets out a play that gathers moral behaviours and religious aspects, and has all elements of an excellent play. Greeks put their stamps in many parts in literature; however, their obvious stamps were in writing poetry and drama which, in my opinion, haven’t been equaled or surpassed until this day. In the past, Greeks wrote masterpieces which then became an inspiration and an influence to a lot of writers and readers around the world. Furthermore, tragedies took big part of their culture which were created out of songs and performed at an open air theatre for Gods and Goddesses …show more content…
however, there is a disagreement between critics about what the speech really meant (Bowra, 1944). The scene, when Oedipus declares himself as Child of Fortune, was trying to take control of things by interpreting the past, present and future. Oedipus’ characteristic seems to depend on how to control the outcome of life since he was under the mercy of many allegations that happened in the past and will happen in the future. When Oedipus becomes uncertain of his identity he pronounces his defence confidently. Some critics claim that Oedipus is not a child of furtune. As in the case of Bowra (1944) who claims that the following lines are the lines Oedipus said, “so excited that it may be wrong to demand any clear thought from him”. Bowra (1944) highlights the following characterization in Oedipus by saying “ Oedipus was excited about the outcome because he thinks it will bring him joy; so he was carried away when he was at the edge of a breakdown with a hope to know who he really is” (435). These two examples shows how uncertain Oedipus is about whether he is a child of fortune or not. However, many critics like Leinieks (1975) states that he is a child of fortune by the various powers he has. Leinieks (1975) points to a kind of power that helps in treatment as in the example when Oedipus takes the power of reasoning to control life matters for a positive outcome. Moreover, Gellie (1972) and Burton (1980) evaluated and estimated another power of Oedipus which is the ability to bring back into shape certain things like political decisions. A third power is represented as Oedipus the leader and the king. Oedipus appears to be having the power that makes Creon go to Delphi (69–72) and Tiresias come urgently (287–289). However, Jocasta takes the power when she calls him a despot and destine and runs out of the place in line (1068) and (1071) respectively. As a result, the