Amanda Mims' Meditation #5

I absolutely love Oedipus Rex; it’s like a Greek soap opera. It is filled with murder, marriage, suicide, incest, and deceit. Oedipus is the epitome of a tragic hero; he is his own worst enemy. However the entire time I was reading it all I could think of was how many different ideas it had inspired, all based on this horrid, yet somewhat intriguing myth-- most notably, Freud and his theory of the Oedipus complex, when little boys fall deeply in love with their mother. But then again Freud was crazy and had a strange obsession with his own mother; does that make Freud equal to Oedipus? Freud believed that everyone was fueled on sexual desire and was motivated by their own sexual desires, even if it’s not that obvious. So was Oedipus driven by his sexual desires, his lust for his mother, or was he simply fulfilling a prophecy he was trying so hard to avoid? I believe that by trying so hard to avoid something he actually fell right into the trap. His destiny was set for him, since day one. You cannot go around attempting to avoid your own fate. Oedipus was made to believe that he had freewill, allowed to leave and try and be the better person, however from the second the prophet spoke those words the tragic chain of events was set into motion. He had no choice, no say in his life or his decisions and single-handedly destroyed his entire family, everyone that loved him and caused his mother/wife/lover to commit suicide and in the end he himself had to gouge his eyes out so that he could stand to live with himself.