Essay On Oedipus The King

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Introduction
I have discussed one of the world's most famous plays, Sophocles's Oedipus the King, and my purpose here is to offer a general introduction to this famous and often puzzling work, which, from the time of the Classical Greeks, has set the standard for a form of literature we call dramatic tragedy. I shall be addressing that claim in some detail later on, but before getting to that or to the text of the play itself, I would like to clarify a couple of terms which are going to be crucial parts of the interpretative remarks I have to offer. In this preliminary part of the lecture, I shall attempt to link what goes on in this play to other works we have studied (or will be studying).
The lecture thus falls into three parts: first, an initial discussion of some terms I wish to use (particularly the terms fate and hero), then an application of those terms to what we see going on in Oedipus the King, and finally, building on these two concerns, I would like to address the terms tragedy and tragic vision of experience.
Fate, Fatalism, A Fatalistic World View
In Sophocles's play, as in other works we have read, we encounter an obviously important notion, the role played by fate or the fates. The emphasis placed on these words (and sometimes the personalities representing them) gives to the stories and the vision of life they hold up something we might call a fatalistic quality. What exactly does this mean? What does a text mean when it invokes the concept of fate?
Now, almost everyone will offer a definition of this quality, but it's surprising how those definitions can often differ. So let me attempt to clarify what, for the purposes of this lecture and beyond, I understand by these important terms.
To invoke the concept of fate or to have a fatalistic vision of experience is, simply put, to claim that the most important forces which create, shape, guide, reward, and afflict human life are out of human control. There is someth...