Dear Gustav,

You might have heard my reputation and my set goal. I have heard that you were a communist and that you could probably use some extra cash to get around. With that in mind I was wondering if you would like to join in on my operation for a short stint in exchange for money and perhaps a place to stay. If you do not respond to this letter I will assume that you are not interested.

-Alex

Character

Name: Alex
Gender: Male
Race/Nationality: White/American
Age: 36
Situation: I just got out of jail. I'm tech savvy. I go to the dojo every day to practice with my fighting stick. I tend to keep to myself. I have lots of money even though I don't have a job.
Motive: I will bring down the government with an underground system.

Antigone: The First Feminazi

Throughout history women have always been treated as subservient slaves, though women can easily hold their own. What's the real difference? Their body parts and the difference between estrogen and testosterone. They each have their own strength and weaknesses, but women have always been put down by the more dominant men. Any woman that rises against a man must be disloyal, sneaky, and crazy. In male dominated society that's true, but to women it just means that they're just showing who they really are.

The Fate of Oedipus Rex

"Iocastê: Set your mind at rest. If it is a question of soothsayers, I tell you that you will find no man whose craft gives knowledge of the unknowable. Here is my proof: An oracle was reported to Laïos once (I will not say from Phoibos himself, but from his appointed ministers, at any rate) that his doom would be death at the hands of his own son—his son, born of his flesh and of mine! Now, you remember the story: Laïos was killed by marauding strangers where three highways meet; but his child had not been three days in this world before the King had pierced the baby's ankles and left him to die on a lonely mountainside. Thus, Apollo never caused that child to kill his father, and it was not Laïos' fate to die at the hands of his son, as he had feared. This is what prophets and prophecies are worth! Have no dread of them. It is God himself who can show us what he wills, in his own way.
Oedipus: How strange a shadowy memory crossed my mind, just now while you were speaking; it chilled my heart." (p. 978, lines 182-202)

In Oedipus Rex it is clear that fate exists and free will makes no difference in the outcome. In this passage it clearly shows that fate exists. Not only does what she say help shine a light on Oedipus's fate, but also on the fate of the town and the plague. By her saying this it makes Oedipus remember certain things and makes him delve further into the truth, culminating in the fact that he, Oedipus, did indeed fulfill the prophecy; and because Oedipus is exposed for the murderer he is, the prophecy of his expulsion can also conclude. Thus two prophecies are helped to be fulfilled and, irony of ironies, here she doesn't even believe in fate. This entire drama is filled with clues that all point toward fate existing. Free will is an illusion, something that seems to exist only as a way to get to fate's end; no matter what you do, fate always wins.

Fate vs Free Will

I could easily write a whole paper on this subject. I believe in free will, and think that fate is just an illusion. I believe that what Dumbledore says in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince sums my point up nicely: nothing would've happened if the prophecy hadn't been made. Prophecies don't conclude anything, they are merely catalysts for their own endings. The point of prophecies are to make sure certain major things come about. Prophecies aren't made on mundane things such as dropping a pencil on the floor and picking up again, they are made for big things: in Harry Potter it's to bring about the end of Voldemort's reign; in The Matrix, it's to bring the end of the machines domination; in Oedipus Rex and Macbeth, it has to do with kingship. In other words free will dominates the usual everyday decisions. But notice, everything that I've mentioned comes from books and movies, not from real life. Prophecies and fate are merely writer's creations, something that they wish existed, and (based on how well known all of these references are) something we wish existed. We have always wanted a guiding hand in life, someone to steer through the treacherous waters for us, but fate does not exist. It seems to me that the total interactions of so many people with free will end up looking like and being mistaken for fate.

What's the big deal with MLK?

What's the big deal with Martin Luther King, Jr.? A lot. The man was smart, as seen in his letter from Birmingham jail. He wrote it in the dark of jail, with nothing inspiring him except the reason of why he was in jail in the first place. In the letter, the organization, spelling, and grammar are impeccable; this essentially is his rough draft. He uses words that only the high class knew, and he wasn't sitting around with a dictionary. He also pulls history from all sorts of places to make his points, without a set of encyclopedias with him. Why is he great? He had an answer for everything he did. It's more than most people have including the president. He explains things that others could not satisfactorily explain. He's amazingly literate for someone who wasn't allowed to get the top education. His conviction and passion were unparalleled by most anybody, and he expressed himself in terms that you could feel his passion and know exactly where he was coming from.

Oedipus Rex

Part I
1. Aristotle: There is singing as well as the traditional straight line delivery. The six elements of tragedy are: plot, characters, verbal expression, thought, visual adornment, and song-composition. Fated plays instead of episodic plays are good, and are "artistically superior." Peripety is when a shift occurs from what is previously stated to the opposite.
Freud: Oedipus is a tragedy of destiny. Oedipus moves us because we can identify with him. We direct our first sexual impulse toward our mother and our first hatred toward our father, as shown and followed through with Oedipus.
Knox: The true equation for man is found. Oedipus, the epitome of man, is found for what he truly is: a murder, something that tainted.
Poole: Oedipus resembles Athens in his expediency and in his love for the public. Oedipus also represents the enlightenment from barbarity to civility as had just been seen to pass in Athens.

2. Oedipus will expose his own downfall, with the murder of his father on his hands. Despite the fact that he is a beloved king that has brought the kingdom out of the dark ages, he will be set to destroy himself for the "tragedy of fate."

Part II
1. Whether you come in dread, or crave some blessing: Tell me, and never doubt that I will help you (p. 961, line 12-13). I know that you are deathly sick; and yet, Sick as you are, not one is as sick as I. (p. 962, line 62-63).

2. The people that he leads are sick and need help. He is doing everything in his power to help them, and includes himself in any punishments that are needed to rid the defiler who has caused the sickness.

3. The fact that he talks so that all of the people can hear shows that he is a good king who really cares about his people.

4. Oedipus loves his people, and cares for them, and will do anything for them.

5. The chorus sings about how Oedipus remembers how the gods are powerful and mighty and how he hopes that they will come and help the people of his kingdom.

Part III
1. But there is one man who may detect the criminal. This is Teiresias, this is the holy prophet (p. 968, lines 81-81). You are all ignorant. No; I will never tell you what I know. Now it is my misery; then, it would be yours. (p. 969, lines 111-113). I do not intend to tortre myself, or you. Why persist in asking? You will not persuade me. (p. 969, 116-117)

2. Oedipus wants to know who the defiler of the land is to help his people, but Teiresias does not want to tell.

3. Oedipus is too high and mighty to think to be named the murderer of Laios; therefore, someone (Creon) must be trying to undermine him, even though he proudly said that the murderer would be cast out and cursed, something he obviously didn't truly think would fall upon him.

4. The seer is blind. Oedipus seeks to find the murderer but thinks conspiracy is haunting him when he is indicated.

5. Teiresias, the blind prophet, has seen the truth; yet Oedipus, who's not blind, cannot see.

6. Oedipus is fighting against the gods and fate, for he believes that the heroic seer lies.