Macbeth and Oedipus

Oedipus was very similar to Macbeth because both of them were confronted and destroyed by a set of circumstances; Oedipus by fate and Macbeth by the witches and their prophecies.
Oedipus the king was given the throne of Thebes because he answered the riddle of the Sphinx. Macbeth did not make the position of king at first, but was promoted to the title of Thane of Cawdor, which is still very high. Macbeth and Oedipus were told by prophesiers, the witches in the case of Macbeth and the oracle in the case of Oedipus, that they would do something to make themselves king. In Oedipus’ case he did not know it at the time but it was a leading cause to him taking the throne. Oedipus was told that he would eventually kill his father and marry his mother. What’s ironic about this is that Oedipus feared this so much that he tried his hardest to avoid this so-called “fate”. Oedipus would later realize that all his efforts to prevent the prophecy from fulfilling itself were basically poin...