Fate
drives the plot of by . In the play, Laius, the father of , has offended
the gods by violating the laws of hospitality in a particularly gruesome fashion. In response,
the gods place a curse on him that he will be killed by his own son. To avoid this curse coming
to pass, he orders his servant to expose his son Oedipus on a mountainside. Because fate or the
decrees of the gods cannot be evaded, Oedipus naturally survives to fulfill his fate.
Oedipus is adopted by the King of Corinth and hears via an oracle that he is condemned
to kill his father and marry his mother. To escape this fate, he leaves Corinth, but indeed
kills Laius at the crossroads and marries . His very efforts to escape the curse by leaving
Corinth are what result in the curse being fulfilled. Thus the message of the play is that you
cannot escape fate.
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