Based on the Oxford's definition, Oedipus is guilty per the fact that he challenged the gods. Another level of guilt is added to Oedipus's crime being that he made his decision purposefully, with the intention of denouncing his own fate.
Although Oedipus is not morally accountable for the crimes discussed above, according to Hegel's theory of tragedy, as a tragic figure, he must also be gravely wrong in some way.
The moral of the story of Oedipus Rex is that it is impossible to escape one's fate. Oedipus, the main character, is told his fate by the Oracle of Delphi. Despite doing everything he can to avoid it, Oedipus still ends up fulfilling the prophecy.
The simple answer is that Oedipus is guilty of two crimes: killing the king and incest. While traveling on the road one day, Oedipus meets King Laius. They have a dispute (essentially over who has the ''right of way''), and Oedipus kills him.
Only when Oedipus threatens violence does the shepherd reveal that long ago he disobeyed his orders and saved the baby out of pity. And, finally, he admits that the baby was the son of Laius and Jocasta. With this news, Oedipus realizes that he has murdered his father and married his mother.
By leaving his home in Corinth, Oedipus thinks he has escaped a terrible prophecy that says that he will kill his father and marry his mother. Oedipus has defeated the riddling Sphinx, saved the seven-gated city of Thebes, and married the queen Jocasta. (Her first husband, Laius, had been killed.)
Realizing who he is and who his parents are, Oedipus screams that he sees the truth, and flees back into the palace. The shepherd and the messenger slowly exit the stage.
Based on the Oxford definition, Oedipus is guilty of patricide as he did in fact kill his own father. Oedipus is certainly conscious of his act of murder, but he is blind to his own patricide.
Oedipus is guilty of many crimes, but this does not mean that he should be punished. One reason that he shouldn't be punished and he wouldn't have known that his parents were Laius and Jocasta. Oedipus was provoked by Laius and he fought back in self-defense oblivious to the fact that Laius is his father.
Oedipus is innocent of his behaviors because he isn't aware that his parents are the victims of his actions, but he is also guilty because he fulfills the prophecy saying he would kill his father and marry his mother and for trying to outsmart the gods and place himself above them.
Oedipus' pride led to his downfall because he refused to listen to anyone else's advice or warnings, even from the gods, and instead relied on his own judgement and decisions. His pride prevented him from accepting the truth about his past and resulted in his exile from Thebes and his own personal suffering.
ACCORDING to a Freudian superstition now widely current, King Oedipus of Thebes was pursued by an unconscious desire to kill his father and violate his mother, and the Greeks told this myth with the sole purpose of showing that every little boy is an Oedipus at heart.
What is Oedipus' tragic flaw, or hamartia? It is hubris or pride. Upon reaching adulthood and hearing the prophecy that he will murder his father and take his mother as his own wife, he attempts to flee the fate the gods have laid out before him by leaving Corinth.
In the play Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, Oedipus is depicted as a morally ambiguous character; neither purely evil or purely good. Oedipus runs from his fate initially to prevent himself from pursuing what he believed was his fate; however, he is lead straight towards his real fate.
Oedipus demands blindness and exile for himself as a result of the consequences of his actions. Even though he did not intend these consequences, he must take responsibility as the agent of them in order to appease his own guilt.
To be sure, Oedipus did massacre Laius and his attendants following a dispute over whose chariot had the right of way — what seems to be an ancient instance of road rage. Even if he did not know that Laius was his father, we might say Oedipus was culpable for a hyper-violent overreaction to a minor slight.
Especially gratuitous is the fact that Oedipus also suffers the indignity of sleeping with his mother, then loses both mother and wife to suicide. There isn't any real justification as to why Oedipus deserves to suffer this. Furthermore, we may challenge the extent to which Oedipus' character is entirely condemnable.
His actions were wrong because incest is unethical, and murdering someone is a crime. He guilty because guilt lies in the act of doing, not in intention. In addition to the prophecy, Oedipus is also guilty of hubris because he displayed excessive pride. The choice was his, and this accounts for some of his guilt.
He had blinded himself because there was now no sight iri Thebes which he would like to see. He did not kill himself because he could not have faced his father and his mother in the realms of death. He had robbed himself of his eye-sight, and he would have liked to deprive himself of his power of hearing also.
Fates was the will of the gods, and unopposable reality. In the play Oedipus The King ( 425 B.C.) by Sophocles (496-406 B.C.), Oedipus is a perfect tragic hero, victim of his fate. As the play starts, the citizens of Thebes beg their king, Oedipus, to lift the plague that threatens to destroy the city.
Born from myth, Sophocles' Oedipus figures as the tragic hero who kills his father and marries his mother. A victim of fate vilified by all, he discovers his own corruption and tears out his eyes in self-punishment — a symbolic castration for his incestuous sin.
In like manner, Oedipus himself was guilty of hubris as he also attempted to thwart the fate that had been decreed for him by the gods, thereby implicitly claiming to be above the gods themselves.
Oedipus squeezes the information out of the herdsman and realizes that he is the son of Laius and Jocasta, killed his father (Laius) and slept with his mother (Jocasta). Long lament by the Chorus. A second messenger reports Jocasta's suicide. Oedipus blinds himself.
The dramatic irony here is multi-faceted. Not only is Oedipus unknowingly cursing himself, but his eventual fate matches his prescribed curse. The tragedy ends with Oedipus in agony having just blinded himself as he limps out of Thebes.
Puzzled at first, then angry, Oedipus insists that Tiresias tell Thebes what he knows. Provoked by the anger and insults of Oedipus, Tiresias begins to hint at his knowledge. Finally, when Oedipus furiously accuses Tiresias of the murder, Tiresias tells Oedipus that Oedipus himself is the curse.