Feet, faith, and fate are all metaphorically connected in
Sophocles’ Oedipus the King. The first time feet are mentioned is on page
159, when Oedipus says, “I would be blind to misery/not to pity my people
kneeling at my feet” (14-15). His
people, desperately searching for some guidance from their king, throw
themselves at his feet with the utmost faith in his counsel. They have lost faith in both life and
themselves, and instead turn to Oedipus to simply hand out their fate and the solutions
to their problems. Similarly, on page
209, a foot metaphor is used when the chorus says, “No footing helps, all
foothold lost and gone” (268). This quote
too brings our attention to the loss of faith: they have no sturdy footing to
rely on, nothing to keep them upright and hopeful. But while feet in these two examples are
being related to faith, they are also very closely connected to fate. An infant whose ankles were bound together characterized
the prophecy that dictated the fate of Laius and his family, once again drawing
attention to feet. In the words of
Jocasta, “my son—/he wasn’t three days old and the boy’s father/fastened his
ankles, had a henchman fling him away/on a barren, trackless mountain”
(790-793). In order to escape their
fate Laius and Jacosta bound their child’s feet and chucked him off a cliff,
which in reality only secured the fate they were trying to avoid. They lost faith in free will and chance,
instead submitting to the fear of fate.
All in all, feet are often used to represent a loss of faith
and fear/submission to fate. But, lo ad behold, the
connection does not stop there. All three words happen to start with the letter "f",
which is kind of cool.
I'm a little confused as to what the "free will" is that Laius and Jocasta were trying to avoid, and what "fate," specifically, that was secured. Throwing the baby off of the cliff seems like free will to me.
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