Oedipus Rex

Theory Paper

Oedipus, who is king in this tale, is married to Jocasta and they have two children. This seems simple enough to those who are ignorant of Oedipus' true lineage. The king before Oedipus was named Laius and he was Jocasta's former husband. Laius and Jocasta had a son who was doomed to kill his father and have an incestuous relationship with his mother and so the child was disposed of in some foliage and left for dead. The child was adopted and raised by another couple and ended up running into his biological father as a young man. He killed his father out of rage for being forced off of the road they both were traveling on. This child was Oedipus all along, and so the first half of the prophecy was fulfilled, even though this was unknown to Oedipus.

The other half of the prophecy was fulfilled when Oedipus became king in Laius' place and married Jocasta. Oedipus knew of this prophecy but he believed that the father and mother in this vision were his adopted parents whom he believed were his biological ones. To avoid this, Oedipus moved far from his parents and believed himself safe from this nightmares. Oedipus is hailed as being a master riddle solver and so it is hard to say for sure if he didn't have some types of suspicions about Jocasta. She could clearly describe Laius to Oedipus as having nearly white grizzled hair. This suggests that Laius was pretty old and that Oedipus was rather young when he killed him because Oedipus describes his run in with the former king as a young man.