Oedipus Plays: Oedipus Rex, Symbols

Symbols are shown in red text whenever they appear in the Plot Summary and Summary and Analysis sections of this LitChart.

Triple Crossroad

Oedipus killed King Laius at a place “where three roads meet,” or a triple crossroad. Typically, crossroads symbolize a choice to be made. Yet because the murder of Laius occurred in the distant past. Oedipus’s choice has already been made, and so the triple crossroads becomes a symbol not of choice but of fate.

Swollen ankles

As an adult, Oedipus still limps from a childhood injury to his ankles. This limp, and his very name—which means “swollen ankle,” and which was given to him because of a childhood ankle injury—are clues to his own identity that Oedipus fails to notice. As such, Oedipus’s ankles become symbols of his fate. His ankles, literally, are the marks of that fate.