The role of Jocasta in Oedipus the King is crucial. Jocasta sees the reality of the situation before Oedipus and the chorus do. The prophecies became known long ago and Jocasta believed they would come true. Jocasta did indeed trust the oracles, but only enough to achieve her own goal. She worked to remove much of the trust Oedipus had in them, in the interest of keeping the city, herself, and Oedipus in a powerful but strong position. Jocasta's role in the story prompted Oedipus to rethink Laius' death and begin trying to solve the riddle of the Sphinx. Jocasta explains that an oracle asked that her husband's death be blamed on her own son. Seeing that the thieves had obviously killed the king, Oedipus, then the new king, began trying to find the culprits. The chorus and Jocasta all recall that Laius was killed by thieves where three paths cross. With that in mind, there was no reason to believe the oracle was right. A long time ago, the oracle said that the child of Laius and Jocasta would eventually kill his father and marry his own mother. Laius then decided that their child should be raised on the mountain that separated the two cities. He ordered a servant to go to the top of this mountain and leave the baby there to die. Obeying the king, the servant did so. At the top of the mountain, a shepherd says that the king and queen of Corinth could take the abandoned child and raise him as their own. The child grew up believing that he had been raised by his biological parents. Far from his biological parents, Oedipus never learned the truth about his past. This has a serious effect on Oedipus' decision making, as he thinks he is going to kill the two people who raised him when he is in the middle of a paper......this is the Oedipus' fate from when he was a baby. Chance determined the past, but it can affect the present and the future. When the Messenger and the Shepherd are present in the story, the past begins to make sense to Oedipus and Jocasta. The child who was sent away so many years ago was the same man who ran from Corinth to Thebes. So the man who fled from Corinth was Oedipus, who killed King Laius. Jocasta was the first to fully understand that she had married and had children with her own son. They then knew that the oracles had become a reality. Jocasta and Oedipus' attempt to change fate proves that fate cannot be changed. The story of Oedipus the King led to the Oedipus Complex. This is described as "a desire for sexual involvement with the parent of the opposite sex and a concomitant feeling of rivalry with the parent of the same sex" (www.britanica.com).