CHAPTER ONE. GENERAL INTRODUCTION

I.1. BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

The ancient Greeks cared deeply about the pursuit of knowledge. Although truth was often a

terrifying concept, they still saw it as a critical virtue and theatre was one way in which the

ideas of knowledge and truth were examined. Many Greek dramatists use the self-realization

of their characters to underscore the themes of their tragedies. Sophocles, for one, uses the

characters transformation of Oedipus, together with the plot, to highlight the theme of his

famous work Oedipus Rex.

Those classical Greek dramatists have given the world major literary themes. One of such

themes is “Fate”. According to Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language,

the word “Fate” is defined as, “The principal or determining cause or will by which things in

general are believed to come to be as they are or events to happen as they do : “Destiny.”

Gatera (2000)1 thinks that, “the way of accepting every event which occurs in human life or

in nature varies: some accept it, others reject it but the last decision does not come from

mortal human beings.” The theme of “Fate” is applicable to Oedipus and his lineage in

Sophocles’s three Theban plays: Antigone, Oedipus Rex, and Oedipus at Colonus and to

Rwandan genocide victims so much in their unavoidable death.

I.1. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

In view of social changes which are at a rapid rate, there is an urgent need to sort out the real

causes of conflict and spiritual unhappiness that prevail in our world today. Every person

needs to find out vital elements which can inspire his plans, lead his movements and provide

meaning to his contact to the world. It is not easy to explain their goals despite the wealth,

the power, the strength and other gifts they have got.

1 Gatera, G. P. (2000) Fate in Nigerian-Igbo Society as Reflected by Achebe’s Fiction. Unpublished BA Dissertation.NUR.

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Similarly, people are struggling over many religious issues, some attributing human suffering

to divinities, thus advocating total submission to them, others questioning whether their lives

are results of fate or free will so that they could live independently from divinities.

Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex demonstrates a fundamental relationship between man’s free will

and fate which most people believe to guide the universe towards some harmonious purpose.

“Fate” being “that power which predetermines what will happen so that it cannot be avoided

for what is fated will happen no matter what we do.” Dovid (1998)2

Attempting to explain how both concepts of “fate” and “free will” are serious problems, one

must note that the specific concern of the present study is to explore “fate” in Sophocles’s

play Oedipus Rex. The present study also seeks to know whether there are things that

“unavoidably befall a person in a way that he cannot turn the course of events or act by free

will”. Grolier (1997)3

The theme of fate is applicable to Rwandan Tutsi lineage as far as their planned

extermination is concerned. Their attempt to self-realization and to the quest for truth after

the undeserved death that befell them before and in 1994 leads to their spiritual and moral

fragility. Nevertheless, their lore to deal with such calamities explains their resilience, and

despite the horror of that collective fate, they have to move on.

2 http://www.dovidgottlieb.com/lectures/free_will_fate_and_providence.htm

3 Grolier (1997) Multimedia Encyclopedia CD-Rom « Fate » Also available on internet, http://gi.glorier.com/

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I.3. CHOICE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROBLEM

In carrying out the present research, I was fascinated by a number of things:

I was mostly fascinated by the theme of fate, probably the most consistent and pervasive in

all of Sophocles’s plays. Thus, we made the assumption that Oedipus Rex would illustrate

that theme given that its central conflict is built on the accomplishment of a prophecy.

Another particular interest in the theme of fate is that it has received the least attention in

analysis of Greek plays in our Department of English while it is probably the most prominent

controversial in current discussions, especially in a country like ours which has seen a group

of its people undergoing a collective fate.

The choice of Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex among his other plays has been motivated by the

fame of its protagonist Oedipus who has been the subject of numerous theories among which

Freudian Oedipus complex. So, the present study comes with the intention of seeking how to

explain the causes of human suffering in terms of “fate”. As human suffering is as old as

humanity, the present study seeks to help understand the origin of some phenomena that take

place in human life – natural disasters, sudden deaths-and the role of divinities in it.

The supernatural intervention to secure the continuity of life, even after life, is central to

Rwandan society where there is no king, no supreme authority to decide on people’s destiny.

Fate as presented in this paper is a universal reality. Sophocles deals with tragic experience

and profound human issues and the study of his work offers his readers a chance to make an

objective criticism of both Greek and Rwandan traditional cultural beliefs. Rwandans believe

that men are not brought to a better and higher position because of their personal

achievements or efforts. Nature always puts down any individual who is aspiring and

determined by all means to achieve status, wealth and fame. “Pride goes before fall” they

say. The constant obsession to personal success is well expressed in terms of fatal greed,

“death that will kill man begins as an appetite”.

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On the other hand, we need to understand whether the painful knowledge of truth is more

important than naiveté as Oedipus’s quest for truth brings about his own destruction as well

as the search for truth about genocide victims brings about social marginalization,

intimidations and threats to genocide survivors. Taking these reasons into consideration we

found it worth the time, effort and expense required to carry out the present study.

I.4. SCOPE AND PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

The aim of this study is to depict different situations which are characteristic of fate in its

features. Particular attention of this motive of fate is directed to Oedipus the protagonist of

the Sophocles’s play and to Rwandan genocide victims both subjected to tragic fate. So,

subject matter associated with the theme of fate will be dealt with all along this study.

The role of fate is often quite big in tragedy, especially in Greek tragedy. For the present

study could not call in all Greek tragedies it has been limited to Sophocles’s play. It would

also be erroneous to claim that this study would deal with all plays by Sophocles. It only

dealt with the theme of fate in “Oedipus Rex” and its relationship with Rwandan genocide

victims. In the present study I intended to highlight impersonal forces that work in

individuals and cause their downfall. Though those forces are found in Greek tragedies, they

bear an ethical meaning that can help other individuals recover their humanity, especially

Rwandans who lost their human dignity during the genocide considered so far as collective

fate. I also intended to explain the impact of socio-cultural beliefs on man’s everyday life,

beliefs that sometimes lead him to adopting unworthy means to escape his destiny or place it

on his fellows, trying to change the course of events. Aided by Sophocles’ exposition of fate,

I intended to put forward some lessons drawn from the failure of Oedipus representing the

old generation in order to suggest optimistic ways for our generation and generations to

come.

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I.5. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Many critics have found interest in commenting on the concepts of “fate” and “free will” in

Oedipus Rex. So, given the fact that the present study is not the first work on the issue, it is

necessary to have a brief review of previous studies on it:

Brooks argues that the play is an irony:

As we have seen, this play is a tissue of ironies: Oedipus by attempting to circumvent his fate, has insured its realization; the Sphinx’s riddle turns upon the question “What is man?” and Oedipus, who thought that he knew the answer, finds at the end that he did not know what he himself was; Oedipus who saves Thebes from the Sphinx cannot save himself. Oedipus’s curse upon the murderer of Laius has been unconsciously a curse on himself.4

Some modern readers are fully satisfied with what Brooks offers because many people ask

themselves what Oedipus could have done to avoid the fate which overtakes him and, if they

can find no such preventive step indicated, they feel that Oedipus is simply a passive,

helpless victim of fate. And others share a closely related feeling that Oedipus is not a guilty

man who deserves his fate. Unlike Brooks, Monroe C. Beardsley (581) asserts that

“Oedipus’s downfall arises from the ignorance of his identity. In his book Theme and Form:

An Introduction to Literature (1969) Beardsley attributes Oedipus’s fate to himself as if he

deserves it.

Dennis wrote in The Literary Spirit:

The questions raised in this play are universal and its Mythology (narratively expanded symbol) is as significant to us and our efforts of understanding reality and humanity as it was to the Periclean Athenians of 430 B.C. Are we masters of our own fate who fall because of some flaw in our character, or are we merely pawns of fate or some larger reality?5

4 Brooks, C. (1948) Understanding Drama. New York: Holt, Rinehard and

Winston, Inc.5 Dennis, J. S. (1988) The Literary Spirit. New Jersey: Prentice Hall

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Many more writers have studied Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex in terms of fate and free will: Calvin S. Brown in Masterworks of World Literature6, Judah Bierman in The Dramatic Experience7, Egger Max in Histoire de la Tragédie Grecque8, Jean Defradas in La Littérature Grecque9, Gabriel Germain in Sophocle10 ,Jacqueline de Romilly in La Tragedie Grecque11 to name only few.

Though few memoirs have studied the theme of fate in our Department of English, there is

not yet any paper that has focused on the theme of fate in Oedipus Rex while it is applicable

to Rwandan Tutsi lineage as far as the undeserved death that befell them before and in 1994

is concerned. So, our contribution here is to show that, regardless of his too enduring to be a

human being and undergo fatalistic circumstances, Oedipus does not show the standard of

what a man can achieve and endure, unlike Rwandans, especially after being subjected to

unavoidable fate. Instead, man can still live decently and heroically even in circumstances in

which he faces destruction. Honorable men, though sent in exile because they hold diverse

opinions which they cannot disguise, have to remain heroes in the struggle for life. Though

treated as enemies and put to death, having committed no crime or wickedness, simply

because they were enlightened, they have to show their resilience instead of resorting to

blaming themselves for what they did not choose to be like. Otherwise, Sophocles’s hero

teaches that no one is the centre of the world and our role here is to depict the Rwandan

belief that no one is supposed to think that everything should move in reference to him.

6 Brown, C. S. (1970) Masterworks of World Literature. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.7 Bierman, J. (1958) The Dramatic Experience. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc.8 Egger, M. (1966) Histoire de la Tragédie grecque. Paris: Mellottée.9 Defradas, J. (1960) La Littérature Grecque. Paris: Librairie Armand Colin.10 Gabriel, G. (1969) Sophocle. Sueil: Ecrivains de Toujours.11 Romilly, J. (1970) La Tragédie Grecque. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

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I.6. METHODS AND DIVISION OF THE WORK

Sophocles’s plays reveal how man is affected by fate and as a matter of fact it has an impact

on him. They tackle a serious existential issue, for they do not remain inside the Greek

society but extend to the entire humanity to alert to the concepts of “fate” and “free will”

providing wisdom that fits the requirements of socio-cultural, political, and economic

changes of matters.

Given that the psychology of man can be influenced by both historical and social events, the

three methodologies: historical-biographical, sociological, and psychological approaches

have been combined to clearly make the study much more efficient, accurate and concise.

Since a literary work has, on the one hand, been studied through its social milieu, it has to

apply the sociological approach. In this regard, H.A Taine in his History of English

Literature12 advocated the dependence of meaning upon the environment. He said that “Race,

Milieu et Moment” do play a major role in the understanding of a literary work, “This

approach sees a literary work chiefly, if not exclusively as a reflection of the author’s life and

times or the life and time of the characters in the work.”13 This is why in the case of

Sophocles, his biography and both the history and social environment of Greece help much

in the understanding of his plays, simply because it is perfectly true that our understanding of

a play may depend on knowledge of the ideas and customs of the period in which it was

written.

On the other hand, the content of Sophocles’s plays requires a psychological approach for it

deals with existential issues; the impact of social and cultural beliefs on our mind, and

phenomena that come out of them. So, sociological and psychological approaches have been

used because the story deals with human beings that undergo all kinds of social,

environmental, economic and psychological effects among themselves. With regard to the

division of the work, the study of fate in Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex and its application to

Rwandan genocide victims was based on a method that motivated the division of the work

into three chapters, apart from the general introduction and conclusion.

12 Taine, H. A (1972) History of English Literature. New York: Randon House.13 Wilfred, L. Guérin et al. (1979) A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. 2nd ed. New York :

Harper and Row.pp.25-26.

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The first chapter presents the theoretical framework, provides definitions and reviews the

literature of the concept of fate from various angles. The second chapter is concerned with

the study of the hero’s fate in Oedipus Rex through theme, plot, focus, action, characters, and

language symbolism. Otherwise put, it portrays Oedipus and his interaction with fate. The

third and last chapter explores fate in the Rwandan society, much attention being paid to

genocide ideologies that contributed to the collective fate of 1994.

CHAPTER TWO: THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS OF FATE

II. 0. INTRODUCTION

In Sophocles's play, as in other works we have read, we encounter an obviously

important notion, the role played by fate or the fates. The emphasis placed on

these words (and sometimes the personalities representing them) gives to the

stories and the vision of life they hold up something we might call a fatalistic

quality. What exactly does this mean? What does a text mean when it invokes the

concept of fate?

Almost everyone will offer a definition of his quality, but it's surprising how

those definitions can often differ. So let us attempt to clarify what, for the

purposes of this study and beyond, we understand by these important terms.

To invoke the concept of fate or to have a fatalistic vision of experience is,

simply put, to claim that the most important forces which create, shape, guide,

reward, and afflict human life are out of human control. i.e. There is something

else which, in effect, sets and controls the rules of our lives, determining most or

all things of particular importance to us: our good and bad fortune, our happiness

and sorrow, and, above all, our death.

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To have a fatalistic sense of life is to hold that in this game of life, the rules, the

flow of play, the success or failure of My team (and My contribution to that), and

so on are out of the control of any human being or collection of human beings.

The outcome and all the various stages of the game are determined from non-

human sources.

The terms fate and fatalistic do assert, however, that something or someone is in

control, and hence the universe does not operate by chance.  We may have little

idea of why fate works the way it does (although differing fatalistic vision will

provide different senses of just how much we can know and deal with fate), but at

least there is something outs controlling what goes on. 

To assert that chance rules all things (as Jocasta does in the play) is to claim that

there is little we can do to control things and nothing we can learn about it, since

the concept of chance suggests that what occurs is quite arbitrary, unrelated to

any higher system of order or meaning.

All these points are clear enough, but it is important to insist upon them, because

(as we shall mention later) such fatalism is, in many ways, profoundly different

from what we believe nowadays, and thus books which hold up a fatalistic view

of life (and that includes almost all books up until the eighteenth century) can

provide difficulties for us, especially since a fatalistic view of life in some ways

challenges some of our most cherished beliefs and can make us profoundly

uncomfortable (a factor which is, of course, something which can make such

books uniquely valuable to us).

If we hold a fatalistic world view or believe in fate, it is not uncommon to give that fate a

name or series of names, that is, to provide some way of talking about or picturing such fatal

forces. Hence arises (according to many scholars of Myth) the entire concept of divinity or a

divine family—superhuman personalities (who may or may not have human forms and

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attributes) who control the rules and the events of our lives according to their own principles,

which may or may not be intelligible to us.

In his Vocabulaire Technique et Critique de la Philosophie André Lalande argues that fate is

‘ Puissance naturelle ou surnaturelle, mais supérieure à l’homme, dont l’action se manifeste

par ce fait que certains événements sont fatals’14. A natural or supernatural power beyond

man’s control, which is manifested by the fact that some events are fatal. (Translation is

mine)

This belief that the course of events is fated, that is, decreed or laid down independently of

the wills and acts of individual men has been subject of many critics. Due to the fact that fate

applies, not to everyday affairs, but to greater affairs- our deaths, our souls’ salvation, war

and peace or social revolutions- which are fated no matter what we may do, its study has

captured the interest of many theorists.

Developed from classical Mythology, especially Greek Mythology in which it was attributed

to the Fates, three sisters goddesses ( called Moirai by Greeks and Parcae by Romans) who

determine the course of human life, to some ‘fate’ was considered a mere conviction of

impotence and to others an affirmation that some metaphysical power has decided the issue.

It is sometimes inevitable to view theories of fate without making allusion to fatalism in its

various phases, that is, the belief that all things come inevitably upon the human race by

blind destiny, with no god to send, direct, or avert them, or the belief that there is a power

above the gods to which they themselves are subject or, according to Sophocles and other

Greek thinkers, the belief that all things come by pure chance.

Fatalism which is most at home in the Orient, is often applied to determinism, the view that

everything, hence every act of will, is the inevitable effect of causes. Since this asserts the

universality of causation, it is almost opposite of fatalism which denies it. It is also almost

impossible to tackle fate without evoking the history of the Fates which are said to be behind

the course of events.

14 Lalande, A. (1965) Vocabulaire Technique et Critique de la Philosophie. Paris: Maisonneuve

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The three sisters goddesses, first named by Hesiod in the 18 th century B.C. as “Clotho who

spins the thread of life, Lachesis who measures it, and Atropos who servers it.”15 Although

they were sometimes worshipped in Greece, they are described chiefly in poetry and their

genealogy and characteristics vary in different periods. Homer mentions Moirai in the plural

only once, and he describes the goddess Moira as assigning to every man his destiny. Hesiod

says that fates are daughters of Zeus whom they serve and Thetis. Later poets give them

other parents and frequently make them independent of the other gods. They are pictured

sometimes a grave maidens, and sometimes as hideous old women. The Romans name them

“Nona, Decuma, and Morta.”16

II.1. THEORIES OF FATE

Giving fate a name or series of names is a necessary imaginative act; or it permits the human

subject to such fate to understand his situation. Such a symbolic construct makes the most

important features of human life emotionally intelligible, allowing me to explain and

generally to accept the game we are all in, even if we are conscious that we did not choose it

and we can imagine a better one. It also permits me in the process to establish a relationship

between different people who assessed the definitions of fate.

II.1.1. BENEDICT SPINOZA

Born at Amsterdam on 24th July 1632 of Portuguese-Jewish parentage, Benedict Spinoza was

personally the most aloof and isolated of beings and his chief aim was to show how men

could make the universe their home and acquire a feeling of kinship with all creatures. Exiled

at an early age from his own community, Spinoza sought communion with a society more

permanent than that of man, and one which was based upon the order of Nature and of God.

In his return for his devotion to Nature and to God, however, he did not suppose that either

the one or the other should condescend to take any particular interest in his own welfare. But

in his Monistic Theory he argued that “when man takes himself separately, he takes himself

15 The World Book Encyclopedia vol.15 (1977) Chicago :Field Entreprises Educational Corporation.P.659

16 Encyclopedia Americana VOL.18 New York: American Corporation.

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solemnly and therefore creates triviality; whereas if he realizes his dependence upon what is

greater-God or Nature- he attains to true dignity and peace of mind.”17 Spinoza’s pantheistic

and necessarianism also held that the course of universe is an iron- bound necessity, that

there is no room anywhere for chance or contingency.

According to him and other pantheists and materialists, all changes are but an expression of

unchanging law. They argue that there is an eternally established providence overruling the

world, but it is in every aspect immutable. Nature, according to him and to other stoics, is an

unbreakable chain of cause and effect. Thus, providence is the hidden reason contained in the

chain and fate or destiny is the external expression of this providence or the instrumentality

by which it is carried out. It is owing to this that the forecast of the future is possible to the

gods.

Spinoza’s critics, in contrast, points out that man is no longer responsible if he commits a

crime nor deserves praise in recompense for his good deeds, that God is the author of sin,

that rewards and punishments have their use as motives, that evil is merely limitation and

therefore not real and whatever is real is good.

To understand the philosophy of Spinoza is to appreciate its blend of Christian, Mystical and

Jewish thought for it is Christian in its serenity and compassion, Mystical in its visionary

character and Jewish in its spiritual obstinacy. Spinoza resembles the Old Testament prophets

in nothing so much as in his insistence that “you cannot serve two masters”. He says that

once we are to obey God there must be no complaint and that once we have surrendered to

Him, we shall find that “his service is perfect freedom”. He argues then that we are by nature

linked with God and to become conscious of this dependence is what is meant by freedom.

That freedom results from a clear and dispassionate awareness of our dependence upon

universal and divine laws is the cornerstone of Spinoza’s ethical teaching. He and his

disciples rejected the idea that everything, every act of will is the inevitable effect of causes.

17 Tomlin, E. W. F.(1959) Great Philosophers of the West.Essex: Arrow Books Ltd

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Moreover, his theory of Substance holds that if there is a substance at all, it must both depend

upon itself and provide the ground of everything else and such substance must therefore be

equivalent to God, for only God possesses the characteristics of being at once self-caused and

the cause of everything. In a word, Spinoza holds that each event in man’s everyday life is

the will of a self-caused substance or God. So, if we do not surrender to Him we surrender to

chaos for he is the only cause of everything.

II. 1. 2. ST THOMAS AQUINAS

St Thomas Aquinas follows Aristotle in asserting that the “Form” is that which gives being to

a thing and makes it what it is; further that all forms are in some way linked with matter,

except the form of God, the Form of forms. St Thomas also holds that human life,

particularly human mind, is committed to a standard which prevents his intellect from being

converted into something different, and possibly mischievous. That standard is Reason. In

the same, according to him, the human will is committed to a standard which, as long as it

remains uppermost, preserves the will as a free instrument. That standard is the Good. The

onset on sin is due entirely to man’s natural and sensual nature rising up and suspending the

will’s operations.

St Thomas refused to entertain the paralyzing notion which Augustine came to embrace with

excessive fervor; namely that human souls are predestined to salvation or damnation. So

great was his respect for Reason, and so ample his conception of it, that he held the Divine

Will itself to be motivated by Reason. To him, if there were any predestination to sin, it was

not of the deterministic kind of St Augustine; it was a moral predestination. The sinner

ultimately comes to choose damnation. Otherwise, it is not his sin that condemns him, but

someone else’s. St Thomas fully rejects deterministic view of fate for a man may feel loss of

initiative on hearing that all his acts are determined by his acts. Sometimes confused with

determinism and fatalism is the logical doctrine that truth, including truth about man’s future,

is eternal (“What is to be is to be”). Another consideration is that St Thomas’s distinction

between perfect happiness for man and imperfect happiness fits on to another idea which he

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had earlier exploited, that though man is at an infinite distance from God, his natural destiny

is to make progress Godward even if no one can tell him without revelation that there is any

prospect of his arriving. He says ‘Man is like Zeno’s tortoise; he will have much pleasure of

search and some partial pleasure of possession, but it is God’s secret that He is going to meet

man more than halfway.’

II. 1. 3. SOPHOCLES

The idea of destiny was of course inseparable from Greek tragedy. Its prevalence was one of

the conditions that presided over art from its birth, and unlike Aeschylus who wrestles with

gods; Sophocles simply accepts it, both as a datum of tradition and a fact of life. But in the

free handling of Sophocles even fate and providence are adminicular to tragic art. They are

instruments through which sympathetic emotion is awakened, deepened, intensified. And,

while the vision of the eternal and unwritten laws was holier yet, for it was not the creation

on any former age, but rose and culminated with the Sophoclean drama, still to the poet and

his Periclean audience this was no abstract notion, but was inseparable from their

impassioned contemplation of life of man-so great and yet so helpless, aiming so high and

falling down so far, a plaything of the gods and yet essentially divine.

Sophocles believes that fate is something that no human being can run from, no matter what

they do or where they hide and that people do not understand that control is an illusion and is

nothing more than something for people to believe in so that they do not feel scared, while

living in this world that is based upon fate. People will always think that they control their

lives even though they do not. He argues that Freewill is also an illusion that is put out by

society; people believe that society gives them choices but really everybody’s life is set up

and is up to fate. Sophocles also thinks that fate is what tells a man how he is going to live

his life and how everything in his life is going to happen. Fate can either be on a person’s

side or against a person’s side and luck is what can weight fate towards a person or against a

person.

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Sophocles also asserts that “fate is a universal continuum, which holds no direct path, and

has few time constraints to limit its power and no amount of running, no decisions; no life

alterations can prevent it from coming into being for the Fates that rule the cosmos are

powerful and Mysterious, and we have no right to assume that they are friendly. The human

being who sets himself up to live life only on his own terms, as the totally free expressions of

his own will, is going to come to a self-destructive end.”18

In the end, Sophocles holds that to call a world view fatalist or to believe in fate is not

necessarily to characterize fate as having any particular form. So, for example, a fatalistic

world view might be extremely pessimistic, seeking in the non-human forces an irrational

and often malignant force or personality which has little love for human beings and who

takes a great delight in human suffering and death (or who, at least, permits it without much

scruple).

Alternatively, a fatalistic world view might well hold that the controlling forces or

personalities of the cosmos are, on the whole, benevolent and friendly and that, if man

attends carefully to what they demand, he may lead a generally satisfying life, perhaps even

going on to some eternal happiness in the life hereafter.

II. 2. FATE AND OTHER DOCTRINES

There are conflicting on what fate should be though they all share the sense that there is no

human control over the rules and no method humans can devise or changing such rules, some

being much more pessimistic than others.

18 Sophocles (1972) The Theban Plays. New York: Viking Penguin Inc.

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II. 2. 1. FATE AND FREE WILL

In psychology, will is the name given to a person’s ability to act purposefully. When you turn

on the light to see what is in the room, you may be said to have willed the action. This type

of act is called voluntary. But when you blink your eyes spontaneously at a flash of light, this

act is not willed, and is called involuntary. Psychologists often think of the will as a special

capacity by which the individual translates his ideas and desires into actions.

Thus, if you desire to improve your grades in school your will can keep you at your books

even though you might be tempted to go having fun. Many present-day psychologists prefer

to use the term will, not to refer to a capacity of mind, but as a name for several factors

within a person. These are the factors which go into the process of making a decision.

Prominent among these factors are our habits, interests, and desires. We often find a conflict

within ourselves because we want a variety of ideals-to personal integrity as well as to

friendship.

We may be undecided and feel frustrated by our various needs. The need we feel to make up

our minds often comes out of such indecision. The achievements of many of history’s

greatest men started as their reaction to a feeling of frustration. There need not to be a clash,

however, between the two views of will because they bring out different aspects. Taken as a

distinct power of man, the will signifies our basic and enduring tendency to obtain what

perfects and satisfies our whole nature. But the will does not act in isolation. It works in and

through our particular habits, interests and attitudes.

They enable the will to follow an intelligent and effective plan. And, in turn, our inclinations

and interests have to be brought to some decision and integrated with our basic needs and

desires. This is done through the will’s acts of choice. We might say that a person is what he

strives for. He can often be understood best through his wishes and ambitions. His will power

expresses his determination to achieve a certain goal. A person’s will power can often make

the difference between success and failure.

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With regard to free will or freedom of will, it is “a prerogative which men have claimed and

disclaimed philosophically for many centuries.”19 The question is whether our conscious and

deliberate acts-which may or may not issue from a special faculty or agent, the will- originate

in us with a certain unique spontaneity or, on the contrary, result inexorably from antecedent

causes. There is here a persistent antinoMy, as Kant calls it. Common experience strongly

suggests the principle of determinism or sufficient reason: that “every event is due to causes

by which it could be explained and could have been predicted or prevented.”20

The actions of us and our fellows seem at least as open to influence as everything else and

the natural sciences and psychology can boast of systematically and precisely confirming this

impression. Theology sees the Divine Hand in the same natural order of things, and adds a

special supernatural determinism in the doctrine of predestination by which God decided our

salvation or damnation from eternity. Even the moralist depends on rigorous causation to

assure that acts spring intelligibly from one’s settled character; that they have consequences,

and that punishment and reward affect them.

From the point of view of much recent thought, however, the old impasse seems due less to

the solidity of the arguments on both sides than to their inclusiveness, and to a need for more

evidence and especially for a better formulation of exactly what free will would mean. Many

philosophers and scientists concur that the general law of causation is at best only a broad

empirical generalization, perhaps only a postulate or hope, and that determinism is a matter

of degree.

Since in even the most chaotic world every event must evince some lawful connection with

events, the main question is how few and simple are the laws in this world. The tradition

problem of free will can be only roughly dissociated from that of nature of causation in

general. Whether the cause is only regularly associated with its effects, or is a veritable

transfusion of being to it, or logically entails it.

II. 2. 2. FATE AND PREDESTINATION

19 Encyclopedia Americana Vol.18(1961) New York : American Corporation20 Idem

17

In Theology, predestination is an extreme form of the doctrine of election. “Predestination to

life is the everlasting purpose of God” (Ephesians 1: 11). Theologists believe that God can

and does rise up chosen persons (such as judges, prophets, and kings) to save his people, or a

whole nation to bear his name before the rest of mankind. In the New Testament, “Many are

called but few are chosen” (Mathew 22: 14) to be the special agents or instruments of divine

grace. All Christians are called, i.e. to be saints, holy (Romans 1: 7, 8: 28, I Corinthians 1:

21) members of God’s kingdom or of the church. But Paul tends to move further in the

direction of specific destiny: for example, “Those, whom he predestined, he also called”

(Romans 8: 30), he even uses the old oriental figure of the potter and the clay (Romans 9: 21-

24) and thus, at least leaves the impression that God’s choice is both arbitrary and final, for

salvation or damnation. John also writes as if a divine determination ruled human history,

especially the events in the life of Jesus (John 12: 37-40, 13: 1-2, 17-21).

In the Greco-Roman world, which since the 2nd century B.C. had been under the influence of

a growing fatalism (allied to astrology, which was viewed as a science), it was inevitable that

these ideas should be worked out logically to form the doctrine that God has arbitrarily

chosen some men and angels for eternal life and has left the rest to perish. The full

development of the doctrine is to be seen in the writings of St Augustine and John Calvin. A

similar doctrine is found in Islam whose philosophic thought had considerable influence on

European philosophy in the Middle Ages. The majority of Christians never have gone to the

length of accepting full predestination, although in the Calvinistic theology of colonial New

England Puritanism, it was viewed as a test of Christian devotion to be willing , for the

greater glory of God, to be damned to all eternity. Many theologians and thinkers toyed with

the alternative of a total annihilation of the wicked-the combination of eternal damnation

with the idea of hell-fire was too terrible to contemplate. But the majority of Christians never

have held this view, and even those churches which once were most strongly under the

influence of Calvin are now drawing back from complete adherence to his views and are

renouncing some of his rigorously logical tenets and inferences.

18

For example, the statements in chapter three and ten of the Westminster confession of faith,

based on Calvin’s Institutes of Christian Religion (1536), are now no longer authorized

doctrine of many Calvinist churches. The doctrine may seem to harmonize certain texts of

scripture and the facts of human experience, but it does not harmonize with the revealed

character of God as wise, just, merciful and loving.

II. 2. 3. FATE AND DETERMINISM

“Determinism” is the name given to the theory that all events, even moral choices, are

completely determined by previously existing causes (Latin: Determinare, “to fix or settle”),

opposed to “indeterminism” or “free will”. On this theory an agent cannot be held responsible

in the determinist sense, according to which a man is responsible if and only if he could have

still acted differently, everything before, including his character, being what it was. The

indeterminist view is supported by the experience of remorse. It needs not to involve saying

that our actions are not affected by causes, only that they are not completely determined by

them. Determinists, however, have commonly claimed that their view is quite incompatible

with moral responsibility in any sense in which this is really needed for practical purposes.

Even if determinism is true, it remains a fact that some actions have bad consequences and

that most agents are in some degree influenced against an act by having its badness pointed

out to them, so that ethical argument and blame will still be useful as decreasing the number

of undesirable acts. Even punishment will have a point in so far as it prevents wrongdoing,

though the indeterminist will rejoin that it is unjust unless the action punished is free.

It has also been argued by determinists that a rational action must be determined by motives

but that, if a man’s wrong action is not due to something bad in his nature, he is not to blame

for it, so that it is indeterminism, not determinism, which is incompatible with responsibility.

The indeterminist would usually reply that a man’s nature is not something there already,

prior to and apart from his free actions, and that propositions about a man’s character are

simply generalizations about the kinds of free actions that he performs.

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He cannot avoid admitting that a man causes his free actions in the sense of doing them, but

he would deny that they could even conceivably be predicted with certainty from events

which had occurred in the past together with properties of the agent and of his environment

existing prior to the action.

There is a lack of arguments outside ethics to settle the issue, and in the absence of a

generally accepted philosophical proof of universal causation it would seem best to accept

indeterminism if this is really entailed by ethics. For we know some ethical propositions as

well as we know anything. It may be doubted, however, whether determinism needs involve

more than a minor modification of ethics, and a world in which everything is causally

explicable would seem more rational.

By the second half of the 20th century indeterminism had come to be the more popular

doctrine among philosophers and even among physical scientists, but the issue remained

open and was clearly not to be settled in the sphere of science. It has been argued also that

determinism is incompatible with freedom only if we introduce illegitimately into causation

the notion of compulsion over and above sequence.

The question raises great theological difficulties: theologians have often agued that, if

determinism be true, the problem of evil is insoluble because God would then be responsible

for sin; but others (less numerous) have deduced determinism from the omnipotence and

omniscience of God.

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II. 3. CONCLUSION

As one may discover throughout this first chapter, the idea of fate as an impersonal force that

absolutely predetermines all events was, to the ancient world as it is to the modern, a

philosophical or theological conception rather than a popular notion. For some thinkers, the

nearest approach to such an idea was the concept of allotment made to an individual either by

the gods (fatum divum) and the individual could not escape the portion of misfortune

contained in it, though according to them, he might increase his own folly by deliberate

neglect of a divine warning.

For determinists, all events are predetermined by fate and man cannot choose how to act by

free will for every event that occurs in human life or in nature is something which must

happen as it does because it has been predetermined by previous causes which bring about

their consequences.

Alternatively, materialist scientists believe that the position is in some ways more extreme

than the ancient theologian fatalism. For, while the earlier writers thought that the incidents

of man’s life and fortune were inexorably regulated by an overwhelming power against

which it was useless as well as impossible to strive, they generally held the commonsense

view that our volitions do direct our immediate actions, though our destiny would in any case

be realized.

The last point to discuss upon is the theologian doctrine which holds that God has arbitrarily

chosen some men and angels for eternal life and has left the rest to perish. The full

development of the doctrine is to be seen in the writings of St Augustine and John Calvin. A

similar doctrine is found in Islam whose philosophic thought had considerable influence on

European philosophy in the Middle Ages.

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CHAPTER THREE: HERO’S FATE IN OEDIPUS REX

III.0. INTRODUCTION

We are discussing one of the world's most famous plays, Sophocles's Oedipus the King, and

our purpose here is to offer a general introduction to this famous and often puzzling work,

which, from the time of the Classical Greeks, has set the standard for a form of literature we

call dramatic tragedy. We shall be addressing that claim in some detail later on, but before

getting to that or to the text of the play itself, we would like to clarify Aristotle’s points on

view of tragedy, points which are going to be crucial parts of the interpretative remarks we

have to offer.

In his Poetics, Aristotle outlined the ingredients necessary for a good tragedy, and he based

his formula on what he considered to be the perfect tragedy, Sophocles's Oedipus the King.

According to Aristotle, a tragedy must be an imitation of life in the form of a serious story

that is complete in itself; i.e. through plot, setting, characters, focus or themes, action and

language. A good tragedy will evoke pity and fear in its viewers or readers, causing them to

experience a feeling of catharsis. Catharsis, in Greek, means "purgation" or "purification";

running through the gamut of these strong emotions will leave viewers’ or readers’ feeling

elated.

Aristotle also outlined the characteristics of a good tragic hero. He must be "better than we

are," a man who is superior to the average man in some way. In Oedipus's case, he is superior

not only because of social standing, but also because he is smart and he is the only person

who could solve the Sphinx's riddle.

At the same time, a tragic hero must evoke both pity and fear, and Aristotle claims that the

best way to do this is when he is imperfect. A character with a mixture of good and evil is

more compelling than a character who is merely good. And Oedipus is definitely not perfect;

although a clever man, he is blind to the truth and refuses to believe Teiresias's warnings.

Although he is a good father, he unwittingly fathered children in incest.

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A tragic hero suffers because of his hamartia, a Greek word that is often translated as "tragic

flaw" but really means "error in judgment." Often this flaw or error has to do with fate, a

character tempts fate, thinks he can change fate or does not realize what fate has in store for

him. In Oedipus the King, fate is an idea that surfaces again and again. Whether or not

Oedipus has a "tragic flaw" is a matter that will be discussed later. The focus on fate reveals

another aspect of a tragedy as outlined by Aristotle: dramatic irony.

Moreover, in Sophocles' Oedipus the King, the themes of “fate” and “free will”, which are

the subject matter of our study, are very strong throughout the play. Only one, however,

brought about Oedipus' downfall and death. Both points could be argued to great effect. In

ancient Greece, fate was considered to be a rudimentary part of daily life. Every aspect of life

depended and was based upon fate. It is common belief to assume that mankind does indeed

have free will and each individual can decide the outcome of his or her life. Fate and free will

both decide the fate of Oedipus the King.

III.1. PLOT

As Oedipus grows in terrifying self-knowledge, he changes from a prideful heroic king at the

beginning of the play, with a tyrant denial toward the middle, to a condemned fearful man,

humbled by his tragic fate by the end. At first, Oedipus appears to be a confident valiant

hero. This is especially true during the situation alluded to at the beginning of the drama,

when he solves the Sphinx’s riddle. Although Oedipus is not a native Theban he still chooses

to answer the riddle of the Sphinx despite her threat of death to anyone who fails to answer

correctly. Only a man like Oedipus, a man possessing a tremendous self-confidence, could

have such courage. When Oedipus succeeds, freeing the city from the Sphinx’s evil reign, he

instantly becomes famous and known for his bravery and intelligence. His actions seem to be

a blessing, a special gift from the gods, used to benefit the city as a whole. Soon, however,

Oedipus’s character changes to a man in denial- a man more like a tyrant than a king-as he

begins to solve the new riddle of Laius’s death. A growing paranoia seizes Oedipus when

Jocasta recounts the story of her husband’s murder, leading the king to suspect his past

actions. Yet Oedipus is not quick to blame himself for the plague of the city.

23

Indeed, he tries to place the burden onto others as he continues his investigation blindly

trusting his own superior ability while ignoring the damage evidence that surrounds him.

Sophocles portrays Oedipus as a tyrant of sorts; indeed the people’s greatest blessing

becomes their worst curse. Lastly, Oedipus becomes a man humbled with the pain and

discouragement of knowing the truth as the overwhelming evidence forces him to admit his

tragic destiny. The transformation of Oedipus’s character is most clearly demonstrated when

he chooses to tear out his eyes.

III.2. THEME: RATIONALISM VERSUS FATE

Perhaps the easiest way for a modern audience to approach Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex is to

look at it as a critique of man’s rationalism in front of fate. In fact, Oedipus as presented in

the play is certainly not a wicked man. He has ruled as a just king, and he has ruled with

great success. More than that, he is considered to be the savior of the Theban state, who, after

having been hailed as a hero, married the queen, and became the king of Thebes.

All this the Greek audience knew, and we must know it as well, if we are to understand the

import of tragedy. For what Oedipus had done in answering the Sphinx was to give an

impressive demonstration of the power of the unaided human mind to dispel the darkness of

irrationality. But the human intellect has its limitations. Fate is finally inscrutable. It is true

that man must use his reason as best he can as Oedipus has done though he has become too

confident in his success, too sure of his own power and of his own innocence as indicated in

most of his colloquies. All that Oedipus has done is natural though he exhibits a kind of

complacency with regard to his ability and good motives. In general, he shows himself as the

energetic and practical leader of the state, who will do anything and everything to throw light

on Laius’s murder, while fate had long decided upon his life. To put it in a nutshell, man’s

complete rationalism in the struggle with fate is depicted again and again in the play through

plot construction, setting, focus, action, and being the main theme of the play, through

dramatic irony.

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III.3. SETTING: THE GREEK CONTEXT

If we tell a modern reader that the Greeks had certain ideas which made the guilt of Oedipus,

for them at least, adequate punishment, this would be to save the play (as a documentation of

Greek ideas and mores) at the price of robbing it of any significance which transcends Greek

parochialism. It is perfectly true that our understanding of a play may depend upon the

knowledge of the ideas and customs of the period in which it was written.

Our real problem, then, with Oedipus the King, is to relate the particular ideas and customs

utilized in the play to universal themes. In this connection, modern anthropology and

psychology have been of help. We do not refer to the fact that Sigmund Freud has used

Oedipus as a symbol for a complex of important emotional biases and attitudes.

We have in mind this: that modern anthropology and psychology have shown that more value

attaches to Myth than men in the recent past have been inclined to think; that the human

mind often works in devious ways; that the great symbolisms of the past are not exhausted in

any merely rational explanation of them.

Sophocles inherited the story of Oedipus, which had survived because it had captured the

imagination of the Greeks. For various Greek writers it perhaps meant various things, but

what did it mean to Sophocles? Of several things, indeed, we may be sure at the outset:

Sophocles was not interested in exploiting mere sensationalism, nor was he interested in

presenting some conventional message with a kind of mechanical piety.

On the one hand, Oedipus Rex is not merely a detective story. Suspense there is, and

beautifully handled suspense. But every Greek who saw the play, we must remember, knew

beforehand the Oedipus story and its outcome. The dramatist intended significance beyond

that of melodrama. But on the other hand, the dramatist’s meaning was not exhausted in

some special message of concern merely to his particular audience. Sophocles was

preoccupied with affirming the importance of the gods and of their oracles.

25

As such, the play would have little to tell modern man, who of course owes no allegiance to

the oracles but we must remember that Sophocles’ play makes a universal statement, that of

rationalism. The play gives an answer to the present period’s claims of man’s complete

rationalism in the struggle for life.

III.4. CHARACTERS

III.4.1. OEDIPUS THE KING

Oedipus's story, we have argued, focuses our attention on a very particular heroic character,

one who insists upon acting according to his own vision of experience, who persists freely in

the course of action he has not initiated, brushing aside or shouting down the objections or

alternative suggestions of other people. He imposes on his life his own views of what he

thinks is right, refusing to attend to what others are saying (he insists on agreement, rather

than listening to others and weighing what they tell him).  Oedipus, in his freedom, sets in

motion a chain of events for which he accepts full responsibility and, even as disaster looms,

he continues as before, not flinching or assigning blame or tasks to anyone else.

It is worth noting that, even when he learns the horrific truth of his life, Oedipus himself

takes on the full responsibility for his own punishment. First, he stabs out his own eyes and

then he insists on banishment. At no time in the play does he compromise: what needs to be

done is what he decides needs to be done. And even in the face of the disastrous truth,

Oedipus does not bend or break or start asking advice. He will act decisively until the very

end. Oedipus remains at the end of the play, for all the total reversal of his fortune, still the

self-assertive man exercising full free control over his own life. If he is going to suffer, then

he will determine what form that suffering will take. Oedipus, of course, is more than just a

particular character: he is also a character type. In fact, his story helps to define a certain

heroic response to experience which we call tragic, and this play is commonly hailed as our

greatest dramatic tragedy.

26

One major component in Oedipus's personality which helps to define him as a character we

label as tragic is his attitude towards fate. Rather than aligning himself with it or learning

through experience to accept the Mystery of fate Oedipus chooses to defy fate. He will make

his own decisions in his own way, and he will live with the consequences those bring. He

will answer to his own sense of himself, rather than shape his life in accordance with

someone else's set of rules or an awareness of something bigger and more important than

himself. That's true of Oedipus at the start of the play, and he's doing the same thing at the

end. Some modern scholars will blame him for this determination, calling it his hubris or

tragic flaw that brings in his destruction. But one may ask himself whether, had Oedipus

stayed indifferent, his fate couldn’t be fulfilled. Sophocles is making a point with Oedipus

Rex. His point is that the more you try and control fate, the more it controls you. What does

this mean exactly? Do you control your fate by accepting it? Or do you just live your life

without trying to learn what your fate will be? Or is he just saying that no matter what you

do, your fate will fulfill itself with or without your help?

It seems likely that the point would be to just live your life and not worry what fate will bring

you because when you try to control the uncontrollable, you end up virtually painting

yourself into a corner. Throughout the play you see Oedipus get broken from fate and trying

to escape it. It would seem that he would lose all hope because no matter what he does, the

prophecies laid out for him keep coming true. Sophocles was probably trying to say to just

live your life. You can not change your fate, so why not just keep it a surprise? Don not

waste your time with oracles and don’t try to control your fate.

III.4.2. JOCASTA THE QUEEN

One needs to measure Oedipus's stature against the other characters in the play, taking into

account his capacity for decisive action in comparison to their inaction or unwillingness to

think through the need for action. 

27

It is of course one of the major ironies of the play that it is Jocasta’s effort to reassure

Oedipus that shakes him with doubt. She argues that one need not pay attention to the

oracles. She illustrates her generalization by pointing out the complete failure of the oracle

which had stated that Laius would be killed by his own son. According to her, the son died as

an infant, and Laius was killed by a highwayman. But in saying this, she happens to describe

the place where Laius was killed, and Oedipus remembers too well that he had killed a man

of about Laius’s age at this spot and about the same time that Laius died. Jocasta tries to

discourage him from seeking additional information, but Oedipus cannot rest until he knows,

for better or worse, whether or not he is guilty.

What she is doing here, of course, is inviting Oedipus to be someone else, someone who has

no concern for living up to his reputation for knowledge and courage.  And, of course,

Oedipus does not listen to her, just as he does not listen to anyone else.

If we have been correct in approaching the play as a critique of rationalism, then this theme

receives a strong reinforcement from the speeches and actions of Jocasta. Fate, she believes,

can be outwitted. Long ago, she and Laius tried to circumvent the oracle’s prediction

concerning their offspring, and she is sure they have succeeded.

We should notice, however, that Jocasta does not say that the gods are powerless. She is

careful to say of the oracle which she believes that she and Laius have circumvented: “I will

not say it was from Phoebus himself, but from his ministers….”

III.4.3. THE CHORUS

One needs also to measure Oedipus's stature against the Chorus. The contrast between

Oedipus and the Chorus, very prominent in a stage production, is perhaps less evident to a

reader.  But it is important to note just how incapable they are of acting decisively.  They

want something done, but they are all too aware of their own limitations, their fear in the face

of the unknown, typically addressing their fates with acknowledgements of their own terror

or fearful questions.

28

The Choral utterances are reminders of what we might call a normal response to experience

—hesitation, fears, hopes, questions.  They want to believe in the benevolence of their gods,

but they know all too well that that may not be there.  Confronting their fates with such

feelings, naturally they lack the assertive self-confidence to do anything significant at the

time of crisis, and they look to Oedipus to take actions because they not only have no idea

what to do but lack the self-confidence to do anything.

III.5. THE QUESTION OF FOCUS

In the first place it is important to see that Sophocles might not have written his play so as to

put the principal focus on some decisive act by which the protagonist causes his own

downfall, for we can argue, if we like, that Oedipus actually performed such an act when he

ventured to kill Laius and another such act when he married Jocasta, still, these events took

place long before the action of the play. They are brought into focus only late in the play.Is

Oedipus the King, then, a play which lacks emphasis on some decisive act committed by the

protagonist, and which presents us, consequently, with what is essentially a passive

protagonist?

III.6. THE ACTION OF THE PLAY

As Sophocles has actually focused the play, the action consists in Oedipus struggle for

knowledge (a struggle first for knowledge of the evil that besets the state) but ultimately a

struggle for self-knowledge. This knowledge does not overwhelm a passive Oedipus. He has

to strive actively for it-against the witnesses and against the pleas of well-wishers who try to

dissuade him from the quest.

The oracle does not simply announce that Oedipus is the murderer. Even the specific

accusation made by Teiresias as the instrument of the god is qualified by the obvious anger in

which it is spoken. The accusation does not convince the Theban elders as it does not

constitute proof so much as Oedipus has demanded it. We must note here that it is Oedipus,

more than any other person in the play, who manages to get together this proof which damns

him. So, knowing is a form of action.

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The gaining of knowledge can be the most important thing which happens to a character, and

like other happenings it may either be stumbled upon the weak and essentially passive

character or it may be striven for heroically and tragically as Oedipus strives actively for the

damning knowledge.

III.7. LANGUAGE: DRAMATIC IRONY

Good tragedies are filled with irony. The audience knows the outcome of the story already,

but the hero does not, making his actions seem ignorant or inappropriate in the face of what

is to come. Whenever a character attempts to change fate, this is ironic to an audience who

knows that the tragic outcome of the story cannot be avoided.

Dramatic irony plays an important part in Oedipus the King. Its story revolves around two

different attempts to change the course of fate: Jocasta and Laius's killing of Oedipus at birth

and Oedipus's flight from Corinth later on. In both cases, an oracle's prophecy comes true

regardless of the characters' actions. Jocasta kills her son only to find him restored to life and

married to her.

Oedipus leaves Corinth only to find that in so doing he has found his real parents and carried

out the oracle's words. Both Oedipus and Jocasta prematurely exult over the failure of

oracles, only to find that the oracles were right after all. Each time a character tries to avert

the future predicted by the oracles, the audience knows their attempt is futile, creating the

sense of irony that permeates the play.

Even the manner in which Oedipus and Jocasta express their disbelief in oracles is ironic. In

an attempt to comfort Oedipus, Jocasta tells him that oracles are powerless; yet at the

beginning of the very next scene we see her praying to the same gods whose powers she has

just mocked. Oedipus rejoices over Polybus's death as a sign that oracles are fallible, yet he

will not return to Corinth for fear that the oracle's statements concerning Meropé could still

come true. Regardless of what they say, both Jocasta and Oedipus continue to suspect that

the oracles could be right, that gods can predict and affect the future and of course the

audience knows they can.

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If Oedipus discounts the power of oracles, he values the power of truth. Instead of relying on

the gods, Oedipus counts on his own ability to root out the truth; after all, he is a riddle-

solver. The contrast between trust in the gods' oracles and trust in intelligence plays out in

this story like the contrast between religion and science in nineteenth-century novels. But the

irony is, of course, that the oracles and Oedipus's scientific method both lead to the same

outcome. Oedipus's search for truth reveals just that, and the truth revealed fulfills the

oracles' prophesies. Ironically, it is Oedipus's rejection of the oracles that uncovers their

power; he relentlessly pursues truth instead of trusting in the gods, and his detective work

finally reveals the fruition of the oracles' words. As Jocasta says, if he could just have left

well enough alone, he would never have discovered the horrible workings of fate.

In his search for the truth, Oedipus shows himself to be a thinker, a man good at unraveling

Mysteries. This is the same characteristic that brought him to Thebes; he was the only man

capable of solving the Sphinx's riddle. His intelligence is what makes him great, yet it is also

what makes him tragic; his problem-solver's mind leads him on as he works through the

Mystery of his birth.

In the Oedipus Myth, marriage to Jocasta was the prize for ridding Thebes of the Sphinx.

Thus Oedipus's intelligence, a trait that brings Oedipus closer to the gods, is what causes him

to commit the most heinous of all possible sins. In killing the Sphinx, Oedipus is the city's

savior, but in killing Laius (and marrying Jocasta), he is its scourge, the cause of the blight

that has struck the city at the play's opening. The Sphinx's riddle echoes throughout the play,

even though Sophocles never mentions the actual question she asked. Audiences would have

known the Sphinx's words: "what is it that goes on four feet in the morning, two feet at

midday, and three feet in the evening?" Oedipus's answer, of course, was "a man." And in the

course of the play, Oedipus himself proves to be that same man, an embodiment of the

Sphinx's riddle. There is much talk of Oedipus's birth and his exposure as an infant here is

the baby of which the Sphinx speaks, crawling on four feet (even though two of Oedipus's

are pinioned). Oedipus throughout most of the play is the adult man, standing on his own two

feet instead of relying on others, even gods.

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And at the end of the play, Oedipus will leave Thebes an old blind man, using a cane. In fact,

Oedipus's name means "swollen foot" because of the pins through his ankles as a baby; thus

even as a baby and a young man he has a limp and uses a cane: a prefiguring of the "three-

legged" old man he will become. Oedipus is more than merely the solver of the Sphinx's

riddle, he himself is the answer.

Perhaps the best example of dramatic irony in this play, however, is the frequent use of

references to eyes, sight, light, and perception throughout. When Oedipus refuses to believe

him, Teiresias cries, "have you eyes, / And do not see your own damnation? Eyes, / And

cannot see what company you keep?” Mentioned twice in the same breath, the word "eyes"

stands out in this sentence. Teiresias knows that Oedipus will blind himself; later in this same

speech he says as much: "those now clear-seeing eyes / Shall then be darkened". The irony is

that sight here means two different things. Oedipus is blessed with the gift of perception; he

was the only man who could "see" the answer to the Sphinx's riddle. Yet he cannot see what

is right before his eyes. He is blind to the truth, for all he seeks is it.

Teiresias's presence in the play, then, is doubly important. As a blind old man, he

foreshadows Oedipus's own future, and the more Oedipus mocks his blindness, the more

ironic he sounds to the audience. Teiresias is a man who understands the truth without the

use of his sight; Oedipus is the opposite, a sighted man who is blind to the truth right before

him. Soon Oedipus will switch roles with Teiresias, becoming a man who sees the truth and

loses his sense of sight.

The vision of life here is very Mysterious and very cruel. Even the best and most innocent of

men, it seems to say, one who has striven to live the best life possible and who endures to

find out the truth of who he really is and what his life really amounts to will be horrified to

learn the truth.

Fate has not established a reasonable covenant here with some clear rules and a happier

future, nor does fate offer a secure and valued life in the community nor is there any sense

that Oedipus's fate is linked to some sin he has committed. Here fate punishes arbitrarily and

mercilessly those who choose to confront the Mystery.

32

III.8. CONCLUSION

To sum up this chapter, it is common to observe that Oedipus the King may well be a

prophetic insight into the nature of our human confidence in our ability to confront fate.

Perhaps we, in our scientific confidence, in the optimistic spirit with which we think we can

deal with fate, may turn out to be like Oedipus, going up against something much more

Mysterious and complex and malignant than we can imagine. I don't want to push this

interpretation here, but such an approach to the play might well help to generate some unease

about the self-assertive confidence with which we declare our own superiority over fate and

seek to solve all questions with those tools which seem to have served us so well in the past,

our intelligence and daring. Do we even fully understand our own swollen feet?

33

CHAPTER FOUR: FATE IN RWANDAN CONTEXT

IV.0. INTRODUCTION

This last chapter seeks to establish the relationship that exists between Rwandan’s and

Greek’s views of fate, especially between Oedipus and genocide victims. It intends to assert

that the belief in an eternal giver of life is embodied in the Rwandan culture. The master of

events who is also the owner of the world governs it according to his rules. Whether fate is

also called destiny, necessity or nature, Rwandans perceive fate as people’s escort, standing

and moving beside human beings up to their final day. It is central as it directs and decides

upon people’s lives. Everybody is under the command of fate whose will is hidden to men.

To emphasize the fact that no human being can shape, guide, or direct his own destiny,

Rwandan society argues that “Iraguha ntimugura”21, “Ntawuburana na Nyamunsi”22, and so

on.

The belief that no one is greater than the owner of the world persists in Rwandan society.

Whatever human beings can do, very often out of pride, it is a big mistake to proclaim one’s

achievements. Sophocles’s hero spends time and efforts to quest for truth and plan future

successes but this does not reach a positive end simply because personal plans, Rwandans

believe, do not always coincide with those of the one who controls the world. Rwandan

proverbs best illustrate the idea that man cannot shape his own destiny. They believe that one

has to achieve his duty where fate has placed him, that no matter how strong or great a man

can be, he should never challenge “Imana”(God) and that the best way of shaping one’s

situation is to work it out where destiny wants him/her to be.

Many Rwandan proverbs and tales as well as Greek legends, teach the futility of trying to

outmaneuver an inexorable fate that has been correctly predicted. Destiny may be seen as a

fixed sequence of events that is inevitable and unchangeable, or that individuals choose their

own destiny by choosing different paths throughout their life.

21 God offers you but never sells to you22 Nobody challenges the Most High

34

Rwandans assert that “the choices we make, not the chances we take, determine our

destiny.” The following lines best illustrate similarities between the Rwandan view of fate

and the world view of it.

IV.1. RWANDAN VIEW OF FATE VERSUS WORLD VIEW

To both Rwandans and other societies “fate” refers to a predetermined course of events. It

may be conceived as a predetermined future, whether general or particular. It is a concept

based on the belief that there is a fixed natural order to the universe and may be envisaged as

fore-ordained by the Divine Will. Rwandans have their particular way of viewing fate, and to

deal with it. In this concern, Baributsa argues, “si la philosophie est effectivement une

réflexion sur les problèmes fondamentaux de l’homme dans son environnement physique et

social et dans son histoire, il est difficile de denier toute espèce d’activité philosophique à

tout ensemble de peuples.’’23If philosophy is effectively man’s thought about his basic

problems in physical, social and historical environment, it is almost impossible to refute any

type of philosophical activity to a variety of people. (Translation is mine)

In this connection, we are to posit that the Rwandan view of fate holds beliefs that are found

in other socio-cultural entities of different times and spaces. This is why key words that relate

to fate such as “Nyamunsi”, “Serupfu”, “Umugisha”, “Imana” (Destiny, Death, Chance,

Divinity) which are characteristics of the Greek society are found in Rwandan proverbs and

tales.

IV.1.1. ORDERING POWER

“Icyagenwe kuba kigomba kuba” (what is to be is to be) is an idea that is rooted in the

Rwandan philosophy. Rwandans believe that man proposes and God disposes. Fate,

according to them, is used in regard to the finality of events as they have worked themselves

out, and that same finality is projected into the future to become the inevitability of events as

they will work themselves out.

23 Baributsa, M. (1985) Les Perspectives de la Pensée Philosophique Bantu Rwandaise après Alexis KAGAME. Butare : Université Nationale du Rwanda.

35

This idea of fate brings about a pessimistic view of life because man witnesses his interior

cemetery as he gets the awareness of his inability to achieve his deep wishes. Proof to this

pessimistic view of life is a good number of Rwandan Tutsis who, dispossessed of their

fundamental reason to live simply because they are bound to a particular ethnic group lineage

they belong to, committed suicide.

Even most Rwandan genocide survivors believe that the future does not offer any guarantee

of salvation to them, for, as depicted in a Rwandan song “Abandi barushywa no kuvuka naho

jyewe nduha buri munsi kugeza gupfa, navukanye amaraso mabi” (others face troubles in

their birth, but I face misery up to death, My blood is cursed), they cannot change the course

of events of the allotment set for them in their birth.

Moreover, Rwandans view fate in terms of predestination and chance; in which no man can

alter the course of events. With this regard, they share Sophocles’s belief that fate is

something that no human being can run from, no matter what they do or where they hide and

that people do not understand that control is an illusion and is nothing more than something

for people to believe in so that they do not feel scared, while living in this world that is based

upon fate. In their own words,

“Umugisha burya uravukanwa, umugisha burya ni nk’ingabire abo Imana yahaye barawuvukana bakazarinda bawusazana, umugishantubyiganirwa.” Chance is born with; chance is like a gift, Those whom God endows chance remain with it till they pass away We need not fight to have chance. (Translation is mine)

Some will tell you that “Agasozi kagusabye amaraso ntuyakarenza”24, to mean that no matter

what you do, you will not even brush away one letter from the allotment posited on your life.

IV.1.2. DIVINE FATALITY

24 The hill that thirsts for your blood ends in having it.

36

“You will die tomorrow no matter what you do”. Such a statement asserts that divine

fatality is absolute and incontestable and it illustrates man’s weakness vis-à-vis divine

fatality. Under its various forms, this type of fatality is manifested in Rwandan beliefs and

is based on docile submission to divine will. Rwandans believe in the Christian doctrine

which holds that “nobody knows what a day can bring forth”25. They assert that man’s

power and efforts are reduced to nothing and that both his worries and awareness about the

future are vain vis-à-vis divine will, for “Ntawurenga umunsi Imana yavuze” (no man goes

beyond God’s decreed time).

They also believe that man’s life is submitted to a cosmic law which mechanically

underlies his existence and that man is impotent in front of that law. Through their saying,

“Iyo Serupfu yaje Semiti ntaharara” (when Death gets in Medicine gets out). They confirm

that to he who must die, anything hurries death.

Rwandans, moreover, think that nothing can alter the course of events predetermined by

Imana(God) and that no man can shape his own destiny the way he wants to:

“Nyamwirukira gushimwa yatanze umugisha wamutanze imbere” (chance precedes one

who seeks exaltation), and that, no matter what you do you cannot challenge fate laid down

by Divine Power. Proof to this is Rwandan proper names such as “Ntawuhiganayo”

(Nobody challenges God). They suggest, on the contrary, that one must delight himself in

what Divine Hand preserved him: “Ayingeneye” (what He offers me), “Mbonimpa” (I just

receive from Him).

These proper names and many more others reveal to which extent Rwandans prefer to obey

cosmic power decreed by Divine Hand, to avoid any challenge that would result in a

punishment from above; just because “Iraguha ntimugura” (God offers but never sells). In

this connection, they believe that God’s favor is arbitrary: “Hari abo Imana iha

nk’ibahonga n’abo yima nk’ibahora” (God upholds some while rejecting others).

Rwandans, though, witness particular beliefs which help them take a position vis-à-vis fate.

25 Proverbs, chapter 27, verse 1

37

Being aware of man’s power limitation and avoiding challenging the divine decreed law,

they do prefer to passively surrender to the irrevocable and uncontrollable partition to

actively rebel and manifest their revolt against it.

Unlike Jocasta and Laius who believed to circumvent a divine long-laid fate, Rwandans do

believe that fate is an absolute and incontestable partition to which man must surrender and

that fate is something that no human being can run from, no matter what they do or where

they hide.

IV.1.3. IRREVOCABLE PARTITION

As it is entailed within Sophocles’ play, every Greek believed beforehand that no human

being can go against the oracles and that divine prophecies must be fulfilled at all costs, no

matter what happens to hinder their achievement. Rwandans, likewise, believe that

whatever your strength, wealth and fame, you cannot shape your own destiny for no one is

greater than the holder of lives. As stated very earlier, no man is brought to a better and

higher position because of his personal achievements or efforts but because of the

“Isumbabyose’s” will.26Being complete disciples of fatalism, they believe that one cannot

choose how to act by free will and that man has to accept every event which occurs in his

life as something which must happen as it does since it has been predetermined: “Akaje

karemerwa”, “Ayingeneye”, “Mbonimpa”.27

III.1.4. PASSIVE SURRENDER

26 The ‘Most High’27 ‘Accept whatever befalls you’, ‘What God offers me’, ‘I just receive from Him’ 

38

The Rwandan belief that the world is a mixture of joy and sorrow, hardship and reward,

laughter and tears, ups and downs entails their belief in the passive surrender to fate.

Religion, pessimism and death are their only attitudes towards destiny. Since they think

that the course of events in human life is inexorably fixed beforehand by fate. They refute

the idea of free will or liberty and prone passive surrender.

Religion, thus, becomes their inspirational source from which they draw guiding lines of

their life and therefore serves as their lighthouse. Some believe in Muslim’s resignation

before fate: “Inch’Allah” (If God wills), “Mekhtoub” (what is to be is to be) for “man

carries his destiny on his neck.”28 Others believe in the biblical statement that:

Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city the watchmen stand guard in vain. In vain you rise early and stay up late toiling for food to eat- for he grants sleep to those he loves29

IV.2. FATE AND GENOCIDE

To best relate fate and genocide, Spinoza cites:

What greater misfortune for a state can be than that honorable men should be sent into exile ,because they held diverse opinions which they cannot disguise? What, I say, can be more hurtful than that men who have committed no crime or wickedness should, simply because they are enlightened, be treated as enemies and put to death…30

As stated earlier, the theme of fate was applicable to Rwandan Tutsi ethnic group as far as

their planned extermination is concerned. The question rises here, whether what befell

them before and in 1994 is man-made or a divine allotment decreed beforehand for them.

IV.2.1. GENOCIDE: MAN’S LABOR

28 Coran, Chapter 14, Sourate XVII29 Psalms, Chapter 127, verses 1-230 Tomlin, E. W. F.(1959) Great Philosophers of the West.Essex: Arrow Books Ltd

39

Anti-Tutsi ideology is a recent phenomenon. Its birth was not accidental; it is steeped in

history, and it has political and racist dimensions. Are the Tutsi not different from the Hutu

who are true natives (Allusion here is made to Oedipus as a stranger in Thebes whose

“origin” is said to be Corinth)? Did they not come from Ethiopia?

So many slogans emphasized the propagandistic discourse of the perpetrators of genocide

against the Hutu from 1959 to 1994. To this issue, it is noteworthy that marginalization

preceded genocide, carrying it in its feathers.

As long as the colonial administration considered Tutsi chiefs as natural allies to its policy,

all the chiefs were considered in the colonial discourse as belonging to a “race” other than

Hutu or Twa, even if they were not separated from the other groups by language, or by

culture, or by their way of life.

During the great periods of colonial forced labor and of Ubuhake, the Rwandans appealed

to authorities against the outrageous treatment they received, not as Tutsi or Hutu, but as

citizens. This was before the associations in charge of defending the interests of only the

Hutu were created.

And, as an irony of fate, the Hutu social revolution was achieved only when contested

injustices had been abolished: Ubuhake (1954)-which, in fact, concerned those who raised

livestock, for the most part Tutsi of modest means- and Akazi (colonial forced labor)

in1958.

However, everything changed after the Hutu revolution. Toward the end of 1950s, Hutu

movements excluded from their claims the Tutsi peasants who had endured the same

suffering as Hutu peasants during the hard times of forced labor and of Ubuhake. Due to

political propaganda, the Hutu considered the Tutsi as a “race of arrogant lords”. This anti-

Tutsi ideology, which was born in the 1950s, was not accidental. It imparted to the Tutsi-

Hamite and to the Hutu-Bantu stereotypes, which were born of colonial discourse, a new

political coloring based, as we have already noted, on the principle of the inversion of

values. On the foundation of this racism without races was born PARMEHUTU, founded

40

by a former seminarian Grégoire KAYIBANDA. He defined Hutu and Tutsi as two

opposed “races”, of which one, the Tutsi, had always dominated the other, the Hutu.

Based on this racist ideology without any races, modern Rwanda would experience five

genocides of Tutsi, unequal as to the number of victims, but with the same type of

organization. Each time the state machinery organized the pogrom in an overt way,

provoked or did not interfere with a population permeated with racist propaganda.

Semujanga best described this phenomenon reviewing “the tragedies of 1959-1960, 1963-

1964, 1973, 1990-1994.”31 Kangura’s words fueled the collective hysteria prevalent in the

Rwandan political circles, which, until then, had hidden from the population the menace of

war which had hung over the country for several years. In the context of an “international

Tutsi plot”, Kangura published a kind of “Protocole des sages de Sion” (Protocol of the

Elders of Zion), “Ten commandments for the Hutu”. 32

1. Every Muhutu must know that a Mututsikazi (woman or girl from the Tutsi

ethnic group), whoever she is, works for the Tutsi ethnic group. Therefore, any Muhutu

who weds a Mututsikazi, who makes a Mututsikazi his concubine, who makes a

Mututsikazi his secretary or his protégée, is a traitor.

2. Every Muhutu must know that our Bahutukazi (women or girls from the Hutu

ethnic group) daughters are more worthy and more aware of their roles as women, spouse,

and mothers. Are they not prettier, good secretaries, and more honest?

3. Bahutukazi, be vigilant, and bring your husbands, sons, and brothers to

reason.

4. Every Muhutu must know that every Mututsi is dishonest in business. His

only aim is to enhance the supremacy of his ethnic group. Therefore, every Muhutu is a

traitor:

31 Semujanga, J. (2003) The Origins of Rwandan Genocide. New York: Humanity Books32 “Appel à la conscience des Bahutu” in Kangura 6 (December 1990). pp. 6-8

41

Who makes an alliance with Batutsi in his business;

Who invests his money or state money in the enterprise of a Mututsi;

Who grants Batutsi favors in business (granting of import licenses, bank loans,

plots for building, or public markets).

5. Strategic positions-political, administrative, economic, military, and security-

must be entrusted to Bahutu.

6. The sector of education (students and teachers) must have a majority of Hutu.

7. The Rwandan Armed Forces must be exclusively Hutu. The experience of

October 1990 war is a lesson for us. No member of the military may marry a Mututsikazi.

8. The Hutu must stop feeling any pity for the Tutsi.

9. Bahutu, whoever they are, must be united with, in solidarity with, and

preoccupied with their Bahutu brothers. Bahutu from inside and outside Rwanda must

constantly seek friends and allies for the Hutu cause, beginning with their Bantu brothers.

They must counter Tutsi propaganda. Bahutu must be firm and vigilant against their

common Tutsi eneMy.

10. The 1959 social revolution, 1961 referendum, and Hutu ideology must be

taught to every Muhutu at all levels. Every Muhutu must widely disseminate this ideology.

Any Muhutu who persecutes his Muhutu brother for having read, spread, and taught this

ideology is a traitor.

The general message of this argument is to bring the Hutu to hate the Tutsi and, on the

formal level, “Ten commandments for the Hutu” are divided into two types: those

providing knowledge to be acquired by the Hutu (cognitive process) and those defining

action based on knowledge (pragmatic process).

42

The appeal part of the commandments is especially marked by verbs of cognition,

essentially the verb “know” followed by the modality “must-do” that constitutes a leitmotiv

emphasizing action: “Every Muhutu must know…” The response part, constituting the

Hutu’s pragmatic process, is especially marked by many verbs of action and words alluding

to the exclusion of the Tutsi from the public and private sectors in Rwanda. The charges

against the Tutsi are numerous (their Aristotelian “hamartia” or flaw of character). The text

evokes the recurring stereotype of the Tutsi who is power-hungry, wicked, deceitful, an

eneMy to be quarantined; the text also recommends solidarity among the Hutu in order to

fight their common eneMy. The figure of traitor, profusely used in political discourse in

Rwanda, is also found. The pejorative adjectives overwhelm the Tutsi by defining him as

the dregs and vermin of the society. Moreover, the semantic configuration of betrayal is

developed from the theme of the Tutsi women.

Besides, the text was understood as the expression of a rejection of nay contact with the

Tutsi: the Hutu were prohibited from physical contact by sexual relations with Tutsi

women-whether in marriage or as a concubine- and were prohibited from political and

economic contact by associations.

By refusing these rights to the Tutsi, the very concept of humanity is refused to them. They

are branded as blemished. In this regard, the Hutu murderers showed two types of behavior.

First, militiamen carried out very well-disciplined killings to punish the guilty. Second,

peasants fueled by emotions, killed randomly and in a disorderly fashion to eliminate the

dregs and vermin of the society.

III.2.2. GENOCIDE: COLLECTIVE FATE

The government's military structure was clearly seen and its creators had an overall strategy

that it implemented with scrupulous planning and organization, control of the levers of

government, highly motivated soldiers and militia, the means to kill vast numbers of

people, the capacity to identify and kill the victims and tight control of the media

(specifically RTLM) to disseminate the right messages both inside and outside the country.

43

When the genocide ended little more than 100 days later, perhaps as many as a million

women, children and men, the vast majority of them Tutsi, lay dead.

Thousands more were raped, tortured and maimed for life. Victims were treated with

sadistic cruelty and suffered unimaginable agony.

III.2.2.1. FATALISTIC HEROES

Aristotle outlined the characteristics of a good tragic hero. He must be "better than we are,"

a man who is superior to the average man in some way. In Oedipus's case, he is superior

not only because of social standing, but also because he is smart and he is the only person

who could solve the Sphinx's riddle. At the same time, a tragic hero must evoke both pity

and fear, and Aristotle claims that the best way to do this is if he is imperfect. The only

term for these Aristotelian positive values to the Tutsi ethnic group, whatever the

communication, was “IMFURA”, the quality of the first born through which wisdom,

courage and generosity come together in the human being.

As Kalibwami states, European missionaries witness Tutsi’s distinguishing qualities:

I had not yet met such interesting young people

as the one who visited our tents for the two days

we spent at Yuhi’s. Almost all of them were the Batutsi,

ten to thirty years old, well built, tall for the most part,

wit an intelligent look, and alert, curious, yet discreet, and

decent in their bearing.33

To the distinguishing qualities of Tutsi fatalistic heroes, Semujanga emphasizes that in

both Rwanda and Burundi, the best schools opened by colonial administration, admitted

33 Kalibwami, J. (1991) Le Catholicisme et la Société Rwandaise, 1900-1962. Paris : Présence Africaine.P. 152

44

princes first, then Tutsi, and finally Hutu. Some Tutsi from the great lineages were also

recruited as assistants and were granted favors, for example instruction leading to a career

as an assistant in colonial administration and in the embryonic Rwandan Catholic church.

On the other hand, Aristotle states that fatalistic heroes do not try any outlet but completely

and passively surrender to what fate has in store for them. Attitudes of Rwandan genocide

victims fulfill Aristotelian norms of fatalistic heroes.

Their death in numbers illustrates their passive submission to fate allotted to them: killers

would come today, kill a few Tutsi from a big group in refuge and go away promising to

come back the next day; and they would indeed come back to find their victims in the same

place.

Attitudes of some genocide survivors on the one hand and of genocide ideology holders on

the other are also fatal. On the one hand, some genocide survivors think that they live to die

as though their fate has been decided upon by Hutus who demonized the Tutsi as having

inherently evil qualities, equating the ethnic group with 'the enemy' and portraying its

women as seductive enemy agents. On the other hand, the genocide ideology holders’

calling for the extermination of genocide survivors as a response to Hutus’ liberation

persists up to now, despite the teaching from government about unity and reconciliation.

III.2.2.2. REVERSAL OF FORTUNE

Based on the stereotype of the Tutsi as “best for command” and from the beginning of

colonization, the Hutu were a minority in the management of the country. However, from

1959 to 1994, it was the Tutsi who were systematically excluded. During these two periods

the mechanisms of racial prejudice worked in the same way, and its causes are multiple and

complex. Here is the most meaningful and the most used in the discourse of exclusion. Of

the causes of racial prejudice, the political motive was the most determining. Indeed, if

theoretically the colonialists kept the monarchic structure in place, in reality traditional

45

power quickly became a simple means for the transmission and execution of the orders of

colonial administration.

It is in this way that during the 1930s, Kagame notes, the triple political chieftaincy in

Rwanda, which had made the traditional regime flexible, was suppressed, and the sub

chieftaincies governed by the Hutu were eliminated for the benefit of the Tutsi. Indeed,

“under Resident (Governor) Mortehan in 1926, the functions of the prefect of the soil, of

the prefect of pastures, and of the army chief were suppressed”34

Later on, after abrogating the triple chieftaincy of pre-colonial Rwanda, the administration

took a step backward by replacing the Tutsi chiefs with Hutu chiefs.

Kalibwami and Antoine Mugesera analyzed “the reversal of alliances between Tutsi

governing fraction, on the one hand, and colonial administration and the church, on the

other. In an original article, Mugesera presents a cutting analysis of PARMEHUTU

strategy and of its relationships with the church and the colonial administration.

He shows that this party, obsessed by its will to reverse in its own favor the ethnicist

premises of colonial discourse and social conflict originating from this orientation, used

propaganda to the limits of tolerance in a society: the ideology of hatred of the Tutsi. Of

this reversal Semujanga testifies

Sacred, the 1959 Revolution had as its aim the noble

official goal of liberation and independence,

which supposes the promotion of national identity,

of the citizen’s rights and duties within the rule of law.

Also sacred, paradoxically, was the ideological machinery

of anti-Tutsi hatred, in the name of which one’s Tutsi

neighbors or relatives were killed for the social promotion

of the Hutu people. Not a single day passed in Central and

Eastern Africa without hateful acts of violence against men

34 Kagame,A.(1958) Un Abrégé de l’Ethnohistoire du Rwanda .P. 183

46

and women because of their ethnic membership.

The sentences ordering rape, humiliation, and death

started with this supreme invocation:

‘In the name of the Hutu people, I kill you.35

Abandoned by fate, the Tutsi could not find any rescue: heaps of corpses in churches,

hundreds of victims neglected by whites who returned home to tell what they saw.

III.2.2.3. FATE CIRCUMVENTION

Sophocles's Oedipus the King, some have argued, is making precisely the point that the

controlling forces of the world are much more Mysterious and powerful than we can

imagine, that we may be deluding ourselves about our own powers, that what we are up

against may be a great deal more complex and unknowable than we can imagine. Severe

natural disasters or new outbreaks of massive lethal epidemics and similar occurrences are

often unpleasant reminders that, even if we don't like to think about fate, we may not have

put our fates as much under our control as we might wish.

Jocasta and Laius tried to hinder their destiny and that of their son from achieving,

forgetting that whatever they may do, they cannot even rub down an iota on what had been

decreed a long time before. In the same way, some Tutsi have tried to escape fate allotted

to them through the phenomenon of “ukwihutura” (ennoblement through riches).

This phenomenon took place over a period of at least three generations and it is noteworthy

that, through economic and matrimonial alliances and mixed marriages, it allowed an

individual to start a new real lineage, of which he became the eponymic ancestor.

The new lineage stocks, frequent in ancient Rwanda, claimed to put a rhythm in the tempo

of social life instead of setting oppositions of the Mythic type (Hutu, Tutsi, Twa)

constituting the Munyarwanda (man of Rwanda).

35Semujanga, J. (2003) The Origins of Rwandan Genocide. New York: Humanity Books

47

On the contrary, after a period of calm during which there was an increase in the number of

mixed marriages, the ethnic question became more acute at the beginning of the 1970s

under the rule of Grégoire Kayibanda. A quota was imposed on the Tutsi who were allotted

only 10 percent of the places in the schools and universities and in civil service posts.

Kayibanda’s anti-Tutsi offensive continued the practice of listing ethnic group membership

on identity cards which could be used in a campaign against the Tutsi, an offensive that

aimed at uniting the Hutu in his support and that targeted to annihilate mixed marriages. It

is in the 1994 genocide that Kayibanda’s goal was achieved, when a Hutu husband killed

his Tutsi wife who had searched refuge into him.

III.2.2.4. DIVINE ROLE

According to Sophocles, the guilt of Oedipus has been decided upon by gods. The wicked

undergoes a frightening malediction, a fatality predetermined beforehand by Zeus through

his oracles. The general opinion relies on the idea that a great misfortune entails another

(“un grand Malheur n’arrive jamais seul”) and it is a prelogic idea affirmed by many

cultures that, when misfortune occurs, people complain “le destin m’en veut” (destiny/fate

is against me) to mean “Imana yankuyeho amaboko”.

Oedipus, some argue, deserves what he undergoes because of his “hamartia” or flaw of

character, but as for the Tutsi the question rises here: what had they done to deserve such

an abominable end? Did they hold an Oedipus’s hamartia which, according to Bellancille,

entailed a punishment? :

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A son passif nous enregistrons l’impulsivité liée

au tempérament primaire. Ceci se manifeste par exemple

lorsqu’il se rue sur un vénérable vieillard, aveugle de surcroit

et devin respecté, après s’être permis de lui adresser des menaces.

Oedipe nous choque aussi par la vantardise dont il fait preuve

à propos d’une devinette trouvée. ” (P.28)36

As to his passive character, we notice impulsivity linked

to his primary behavior. This is true, for instance,

when he confronts a venerable old man,

blind by birth and honored prophet, after threatening him.

Oedipus also chocks us by his pride about the Sphinx’s riddle

he had answered. (Translation is mine)

Bellancille also argues that the hero’s punishment is due to his error of judgment which

pushes him to go beyond the prohibited. The question also rises here, whether the Tutsi had

gone beyond a prohibition or an injunction which brought about their downfall or whether

their life was a transgression to an interdiction. On the other hand, had the oracle not

alerted long before his birth that Oedipus would kill his father and marry his mother? Is,

then, Oedipus not a victim of misfortune he did not call himself? As to his “flaw of

character”, wasn’t it predetermined beforehand so that the prophecy be fulfilled?

Likely, did the Tutsi choose to be born Tutsi? To answer to these series of questions,

people will tell you, “Imana niko yabishatse” (It is God’s will). This refers to the idea that,

if misfortune befalls an individual a malfeasant divinity must be behind it. Greeks affirm

that it is the gods who guide, shape and direct man’s destiny, Zeus and Apollo, who are

omniscient and fully instructed about his fate. It is true that fate always weighs upon man

and that that fatality is willed and guided by divinities. It is meant for real human beings

(Tutsi) as for heroes in tales (Oedipus).

36 Uwizeyimana, B. (2003) Des Oracles au Destin dans La Machine Infernale. Butare : Unpublished BA Memoir

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III.2.2.5. THE END OF THE TRAGEDY

The tragic drama, in Sophocles especially, tends to end with the community's

reflections upon the significance of the life which has just come to an end. In

this respect, genocide survivors reflect each day of their life upon the meaning

of life and upon what the future has in store for them.

The carrying out of the corpses, traditionally the final episode in a tragedy, is a

reconstituting of the community, but not in a way that emphasizes the joyful

fun of community standards. Rather, the citizens are united by a new awareness

of the Mystery of life, something they, in their daily lives, rarely think about

and never discover for themselves. It is given only to the greatest of heroes to

take on the intense Calvary journey, and its end typically confers upon these

extraordinary individuals the awed respect of a community which has benefited

from their willingness to live life to the extreme.

III.3. CONCLUSION

To sum up this point about fate in Rwandan context, it is worth to note that

genocide in Rwanda followed a kind of protocol in its inspiration, linked to a

tense sociopolitical situation in its development and consequences which were

more or less culturally determined many years before. We may even say that it

was an institution if we observe the recurring massacres since 1959.

It was sociologically established and it did not result from the blind instincts of

vulgar extremists, as asserted by some. The great moments of mass killings

were accompanied with cries, songs, and similar gestures, executed at the same

moment: “death to the eneMy”. Indeed, the Tutsi, who had been presented in

political discourse for four decades as “eneMy” to be got rid of, finally became

one in the collective psyche: killing a Tutsi is killing the “eneMy” of Hutu

lineage.

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GENERAL CONCLUSION

To put it to nutshell, it is worth noting that the study of Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex aimed the

analysis of the theme of fate, the power that guides, directs and shapes the course of events

in man’s life and its relationship with Rwandan genocide victims. Oedipus, the protagonist

of Sophocles’s play is the best illustration of man’s known reality: man’s happiness never

lasts long. Sophocles tries to illustrate that man cannot provide himself with long lasting

happiness for, if he claims to be self-reliant, happiness changes into bitterness. Sophocles

shows that nobody claims to be happy before his last hour for, as Rwandans say, man

proposes and fate disposes.

Whether we consider the fate of such innocent people as the Tutsi in Rwanda or that of

Sophocles’s “arrogant and proud” hero-Oedipus-, nature is not sentimentalist. Fate is more

powerful than human beings. It is also ready to act at any time and nobody can resist nor

fight it. Nobody dares escape fate for “tu chasses la nature et elle revient au gallop” (you

chase nature and it comes back galloping). To emphasize that no man can shape or escape

his own destiny, Achebe argues:

A man may go to England, become a lawyer or a doctor, but does not change his blood. It is like a bird that flies off the earth and lands on an ant-hill. It is still on the ground. 37

The idea that man has to achieve his duty where fate has placed him is fruitful in this study. Oedipus’s down fall is linked to his ambition to self-realization and search for truth. The best way of shaping one’s situation is to work it out where destiny wants him to be, for, Rwandans like to say, “Ntawuhiganayo” (nobody challenges the Almighty). Those who try their own ways end in deceiving the Holder of everyman’s destiny and the reward to their misbehavior costs them life. To this issue Achebe argues: What a man commits…follows him, comes back to take its toll. Whatever we see following a man, whatever fate comes to take revenge on him, can only be what man in some way or another, in a previous life if not in this, has committed.

37 Achebe, C. (1960) No Longer at Ease. London: Heinmann Educational Books. P. 145

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The guilty suffers; the sufferer is guilty. As for the righteous, those whose arms are straight, they will always prosper!38

Sophocles’s hero is more likely someone who confronts fate in a very personal

manner and whose reaction to that encounter serves to illuminate for us our

own particular condition. Most of us, Rwandans after all, live in a community

where we don't have to think about the implications of a fatalistic vision of the

universe very much because our social group has educated us in a particular

way of understanding the world and has provided, in addition to that education,

all sorts of stories, rituals, institutions, and so on to reinforce our common

approach to experience. We are all, to a great degree, creatures of habit in this

respect. And so we don't constantly explore the basis for our belief or (if we

stay more or less within our community) have to cope with any challenge to it.

The story of Sophocles’s hero-Oedipus- and of Rwandan heroes-genocide

victims and survivors-who challenge or encounter fate and have to respond can,

on the contrary, force us to confront some basic truths about life and about how

what we like to believe rests on some fundamental assumptions. It is in this

connection that I find My study less exhaustive in the study of fate, and I

encourage future researchers or researches to set their emphasis on this

complex notion our world today fear to face, for when we read stories that deal

with it, we have to confront a challenge: Who does control our lives? What sort

of relationship do we have to that divine force? Does an acknowledgement of a

fatal divine presence impose any moral obligations on me relative to my fellow

believers? And so on.

38 Achebe, C. (1988) Anthills of the Savannah. London: Heinmann Educational Books. P. 203

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