Oedipus Rex Discussion Questions

Obviously Oedipus has attempted to escape his fate, and obviously it has caught up with him because, obviously, fate is by definition that which is bound to occur, regardless of our choices and actions.  Keeping that in mind:

1) Do you believe in “fate”?  And if so, in what sense?  (Note that you need not believe in the Greek conception of fate to believe that there are certain events in one’s life that are inescapable, regardless of one’s choices.)

2) What is Oedipus's Hamartia?  That is, how has he led himself to his own undoing, and what are his personal, perhaps inherited, character traits that lead him toward his own ruin?  For help with this, consider his interactions with both Tiresias and Creon.

3) Like Orestes, like Hamlet, like Romeo and Juliet, Oedipus achieves tragic heroism at the very point he fails, which is to say, he cannot become a hero until his fate has doomed -- utterly destroyed -- him, and at that point his personal choices (his hamartia) intersect with those forces beyond his control (his fate). In what ways, then, does Oedipus maintain his heroism even as he becomes the most doomed man in existence, or in what ways does Oedipus' doom prove or lead to his true tragic heroism?

4) Aside from the message that we cannot escape our fates (and that we should avoid sleeping with our mothers and killing our fathers, duh), what are we supposed to learn from this story?