Oedipus the King of Thebes by Sophocles

Oedipus the King of Thebes

Metaphor in Oedipus the King of Thebes

Oedipus the King by Sophocles tells the story of a man victimized by prophesy and fate, despite all his own efforts to escape this fate. The tragedy and the irony of Oedipus is that his intentions are perfectly honorable. Because he is unwilling to succumb to the fate that has been predicted for him, he seeks to escape it, and in this attempt, he walks into the very arms of this fate.

The "two roads" that "join a third" in the reference then is the setting of the first part of the fulfilled prophesy. Oedipus kills his father. He does not know this, however. The murder is the result of sheer arrogance on the part of Oedipus; the result of a show-off with a rival who threatened to "thrust" him aside. The irony is thus exacerbated. Oedipus is not aware that he has in fact killed his father, until much later, when events begin to make themselves clear to him. Thus the reference to "secret valley." The true nature of the murder remains secret from Oedipus himself. Despite all attempts to warn Oedipus, he passionately searches for the truth until the search leads to the devastating end of the play.

The crossroads also refer to a crossroads in Oedipus' life as king. Whereas he begins in glorious fanfare and the confidence of a true king, having saved the people of Thebes from the dangerous and evil Sphinx, he progresses to tyranny and finally to humbled shame when the truth at last makes itself known. The crossroads he is facing is the choices he makes that lead to the fulfillment of the prophesy. He outwits the Sphinx, but is unable to outwit his own fate. This occurs because his own heritage is kept a secret from him until it is too late.

Thus, the blood of his father streaming from Oedipus' fingers is also his own blood. He kills the man who is truly his father by blood. This is also a reference to the blood that streams from his eyes at the end of the play, when the King blinds himself out of shame and regret. His blood flows for his father's blood and his mother's shame.

Oedipus then asks the fated setting of his father's murder if it remembers him, because he was too young to remember it when he was left to die. As a child, Oedipus was abandoned by his mother for the very reason that he leaves the people he believes to be his parents: she wants to evade the prophesy. It is ironic that the very actions taken to avoid the inevitable are instrumental in bringing the prophesy to fulfillment. Thus, by revealing the fate of Oedipus, the prophesy is fulfilled and revealed. Both Oedipus and his place of birth remember each other.