What was Sophocles' intention in writing "Oedipus Rex"? What issues or questions was he trying to present to the audience of his time?

No one
can ever know for sure what ' intentions were in writing , or indeed any of
his plays, for that matter. However, there's no doubt that the play deals with a number of
themes that must have been important to him and to other Greeks at the time. For instance, the
Greeks strongly believed in fate, and that it was both foolish and arrogant to go against it.
Yet that's precisely whatdoes throughout the play, trying to defy his destiny by ever more
elaborate means, only to bring ruin upon himself and his kingdom.

What's
more, fate has been decreed by the gods. For the Greeks, defying fate was therefore not just not
wrong, it was impious, an act of sacrilege against the gods. In defying the will of the
immortals, Oedipus is effectively setting himself up as a god. The killing of his own father,
albeit carried out through ignorance, represents in microcosm how Oedipus has behaved towards
the gods. Sophocles is keen to emphasize to his fellow Greeks just how dangerous it is to defy
the immortals. The consequences are always calamitous.