How Does Oedipus Outrun Fate

In ancient Greek culture Fate was an unstoppable outside force that predetermined human life. A person’s fate was created by the gods and then could be revealed by the oracle at Delphi. In Sophocles’ Oedipus, fate carries the story as the titular character attempts to outrun his fate. In the end he fails and it turns out that he can’t outrun fate because destiny is inevitable. This raises the question of how much responsibility can be put on Oedipus for his own fate and how much responsibility can anyone have for their actions if their destiny is predetermined. In Euripides’ Medea, there is much less emphasis on fate than in Oedipus. This doesn’t mean though that fate doesn’t have a place in the play. It’s actually a very interesting idea to …show more content…
She is a victim of her fate because she could not control that Jason would leave her and if he hadn’t left her then she wouldn’t have felt the need to kill anyone. She is responsible for her fate, though, because she was the one who decided to kill Creon, Creon’s daughter, and her own children. Medea also reveals another reason she is responsible for her fate when she tells the chorus, “But I am deserted, a refugee, thought nothing of by my husband-something he won in a foreign land. I have no mother or brother, nor any relation with whom i can take refuge in this sea of woe” (Medea, Euripides pg. 9). She laments that she has no refuge and no one to to turn to in her “sea of woe”, but she is responsible for putting herself in this position because she decides to leave Colchis and betray her family which left her with no plan if anything went wrong with Jason. This is a not a large reason for responsibility though, because she never would have thought that Jason would abandon her, but it wasn’t a rational …show more content…
He is a victim because he couldn’t control how Medea reacted when he left her for Creon’s daughter. He also was not the one to kill his children, future wife, and future father in law. These aren’t great supports for his being a victim though because he must have expected that Medea wouldn’t just let his actions go. He is responsible for his fate because he leaves Medea and if he hadn’t done that then she never would have wanted to wreck his life. Medea also brings up a support for his responsibility when she says, “ Great Themis, Lady Artemis, behold the things I suffer, though I made him promise” (Medea, Euripides pg.6). What she is saying is that Jason made an oath to Medea and the gods when he married Medea and he broke the oath when he abandoned Medea. By breaking an oath to the gods he almost guarantees that he won’t get away with leaving Medea without some sort of