Throughout Oedipus the king, fate is unchanged. While the main characters such as Jocasta, Laius, and Oedipus try to change their fate, their actions end up leading to the faith that was predicted. Although the characters have freewill, this freewill will always lead to their fate.

The first example of this was Jocasta. After being told of the Oracle’s prediction, she takes it upon herself to try and change the outcome of her fate. She gives her baby to a shepherd and ordered him to kill her son. After this, Jocasta went on with her life believing that she had no children with Laius, so her child could never kill him then marry her. What she did not know was that her decision to try to disrupt her fate led right to the predicted faith. Because she believed that her son was dead, she didn’t think that he was alive to kill Laius and eventually ended up marrying her son without realizing that Oedipus was indeed the one to kill her husband and eventually sleep with her. She tried to avoid her fate using her freewill, but ended up unintentionally using that freewill to make the fate come true.

Another example of freewill leading to fate is with Laius. Laius does not know about his fate until he speaks to an oracle. Upon hearing of the new, Laius and Jocasta plan to try to avoid this faith by killing their child. However, despite his effort, Laius is still killed by his son. The actions that Laius made upon hearing of his fate led directly to that fate. He had his wife send the child to die, yet the child lived. Upon visiting the oracle after his actions, he ended up in a situation where he bothered Oedipus and ended up being killed by him, without ever knowing that his son was this killer. If Laius never tried to disrupt his fate, he would have never sent his son off, or ended up on the road to see the oracle which led directly to his demise.

The characters in this story try to turn fate, yet end up enacting the exact same fate that they sought to avoid. Despite their freewill, there was no avoiding it. Freewill will always lead to fate.