Oedipus first runs away when a drunken man tells him that his parents are not his real parents and he wants to seek wisdom on this from the oracle of Apollo. The oracle tells Oedipus a prophecy that he will kill his father and marry his mother. Oedipus said that “When (he) heard that, (he) ran away” (Sophocles 56). Oedipus then makes the choice to run away and not go back to Corinth, his home. Oedipus has other options that he could have chosen instead of running away from home.
Oedipus was similar to Macbeth because both Oedipus and Macbeth were confronted and destroyed by a set of circumstances, Oedipus by fate and Macbeth by the witches and their prophecies. Oedipus the king is given the throne of Thebes because he answered the riddle of the sphinx correctly. Oedipus unknowingly killed the king of Thebes and took his place and ruler. When he was young, Oedipus received a prophecy that he would eventually kill his father and marry his mother. Sickened by this prophecy, Oedipus ran away from home to prevent these horrid events from occurring.
In Sophocles “Oedipus the king”, Oedipus was sent to mount Cithaeron as a new born baby to die after his father (King Laius) was cursed by the gods and heard of a prophecy that his son is to kill his father and marry his mother (Queen Jocasta). The Shepard in charge of this could not kill the baby so instead Oedipus is adopted. Later Oedipus hears about the prophecy, and leaves, afraid that the prophecy would come true. Along the way he gets in a fight with a man and kills him, unknowingly his father. He then solves a riddle from the Sphinx, which has been terrorizing a kingdom, and in return, the kingdom gives him their queen's hand in marriage, which is his biological mother.
He leaves Corinth and travels to Thebes, and on the way he unknowingly kills his father during a quarrel. After saving Thebes from the Sphinx, he is given the hand of Queen Jocasta, his mother, for marriage and he becomes the new king of Thebes. One of the many reasons Oedipus is a coward is that he didn’t want to face his parent s again. His thought at the moment when he blinds himself is that if he killed himself he will see his real parents in the underworld, who he had committed those crimes against. Instead of repenting for his sins he escapes them.
Then he gets a message that he is thane of Cawdor. At this point he starts to believe the three witches. Later they find out that the first son of the king will be next in line for the throne. That leads to Macbeth’s first test, to kill the king or not. Lady Macbeth is Macbeth’s wife and she wants him to kill the king.
The classical legend of Oedipus by Sophocles, Oedipus is the main character of this tragedy. During the play, it was prophesied that Laius, king of Thebes, and Jocasta, queen of Thebes as well as wife to Laius, would give birth to a child who would grow up and murder his father and marry his mother, Jocasta. Afraid of the terrible prophecy, Laius and Jocasta nailed Oedipus’ feet together, hence the name that means, “swollen foot”, and left him to die. However, a wandering shepherd who took the baby to the nearby city of Corinth. The childless king, Polybus and queen, Merope, who raised him as a prince, then adopted him.
Antigone is the continuation of the play Oedipus, in which foretold disaster strikes a king’s family. Oedipus is told that he will kill his father and marry his mother, so out of fear he flees his home. On the road he meets a man whom he kills and then proceeds to
Oedipus: She gave him to you? Old Man: (About to cry) Oh yes, oh yes, I was to kill the child because there is a prophecy that he will kill his father when he grows up. Oedipus: Enough (he shouted)… (He sat back) it’s all true. Now shall my light be turned into darkness? I am a curse.
Accordingly, this play sends a strong message of fate and free will to the audience. Oedipus’ free will to pursue knowledge of his identity is significant; fate is responsible for Oedipus’s incest and many of the other devastating events in the play. By the importance of fate, Sophocles sends a message across that his characters cannot be fully responsible for their actions. A perfect example of this is blaming Oedipus for marrying mother. His ignorance was his flaw leading to his downfall, fulfilling the prophecy he “tried” so hard to avoid.
This misinterpretation, committed in pursuit of power, leads Macbeth to perform certain actions which result in the death of the king, the death of Macbeth’s friends, and eventually his own demise. At the start of the play, Macbeth is seeking a great amount of power. His wife, Lady Macbeth says to him, “When you durst do it, then you were a man;” (Act 1, sc. 7, line 56), suggesting that they have either considered or committed murder for the sake of their own advancement in the past. Macbeth further condones this in his action to the witches’ prophecy that he will become king.