How Did Oedipus Change His Fate

“An ignorant person is the blind instrument of their own deconstruction.” - Simon Bolivar In the story of “Oedipus the King,” Oedipus, not knowingly, tried to change his fate. A person’s fate is there to stick with them, it is inevitable and not something to be tampered with. He did not know as much about himself as he thought he did and in the end, his stubbornness leads to a tragic downfall.
If Oedipus would have just left things alone, the people would have eventually just moved on. He was set on finding the killer of King Laius that he did not realize he was just pushing the people closer and closer to himself. He did not care about who killed the king, he just wanted to make himself look better for Jocasta and the rest of the people of the village outside of Athens. Even after an old, blind shepherd came and told him about the prophecy that he would grow up and murder his father then marry his mother and how Laius tried to kill him by piercing his feet and leaving him on a mountain then being found by a shepherd who gave him to another shepherd who gave him to another shepherd who took him home with him then let another king and queen adopt him, Oedipus still refused to believe that he is the person that killed Laius and is sleeping with his mother. …show more content…
Oedipus went to his parents who told him that they just took him in and he was still star struck by the idea. When he and Jocasta discussed the problem and how she had a child that was doomed to do the same thing, Oedipus thought of it as a total coincidence but Jocasta starts catching on and tells him to just drop the issue but he still does not. As a result of him not giving up, Jocasta hangs herself because she is so ashamed of what she had done. When Oedipus finds his partner lying on the floor dead, he finally comes to his senses and realizes what he has done and gouges is eyes out as a punishment. Over the entrance to the temple in Delphi are inscribed these words: “Know Thyself,” Oedipus is a classic example of a man whose central problem is that he does not know himself. It is understandable that he did not do a full background check on himself when he started putting the pieces together but if he would have just caught on a little sooner then maybe he could have tried to put the blame on someone else so that he could continue to be king or leave the city before anyone else noticed, none of this would have happened. He damned the person that killed Laius, essentially damning himself. He married the woman that gave birth to him and had children with her, ruining his life along with his mother’s and children’s, and ultimately resulting in the death on Jocasta. If he knew himself and who he truly was, he would have never married his own mother or damned the person that killed the king. Oedipus chose to believe that he was not the person that killed the king even after all the signs pointed to him. If he would have just stopped and looked at the bigger picture then he would