How does 'Oedipus Rex' illustrate the claim that Greek tragedies show what happens when people try to cheat their fate?

Answer 1

That Oedipus attempts to outwit the gods and outrun the Furies of his fate illustrates the claim that Greek tragedies such as "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles (495 B.C.E. - 405 B.C.E.) show what happens when people try to cheat their fate.

Specifically, Theban monarchs Laius and Jocasta attempt to cheat their prophesied fate that their son will grow up to kill his father. They believe that abandoning their three-day-old infant son Oedipus in the wilderness outside Thebes will sabotage their fate. But Oedipus is rescued and grows up to hear his own prophesied fate as his father's killer and his mother's husband. He makes an effort to sabotage that fate by running far away from home. But in the process, he murders an older version of himself and marries a beautiful widowed queen old enough to be his mother. King Oedipus and Queen Jocasta realize that they, not the gods, are outwitted and cornered, not freed, of their fates by every free will choice they make to sabotage the divinely pre-determined courses of their lives.