October: Is Jocasta to Blame?

This month our class read the play Oedipus.  In the play, the main character is deemed a prophecy from birth.  He is doomed to kill his father and marry his mother.  In efforts to avoid this, his mother and father, the king and queen, sent him off to be "bolted" to the side of a mountain, and left to die.  Another man finds him, and saves him.  When he gets older, he learns of the prophecy and, ignorant, tries to escape from his adopted parents.  He ends up where he was born.  Just like the prophecy says, he kills his father and marries his mother.  He has two daughters with his mother.  When he finds out the shame he brought to himself and his family, he struck his eyes, and his mother, Jocasta, killed herself.

I would like to talk more about whose fault the blame should lie in.  In my opinion, it is mainly Jocasta's fault.  Not only did she not follow through with the "termination" of her baby boy, but when her husband was killed she married his killer.  Did she REALLY believe this was a coincidence?  I mean, the guy was the same age her son would be.  There had to be some resemblance.  I don't know, but if I was her I would've been more skeptical.  If there is a prophecy declared with terms as serious as those, don't you think she would be smart enough not to marry again?

In terms of connecting it to modern society, I don't know where this could fit.  You don't really hear about prophecies like this.  The only "prophecy" I can think of is when random guys come out of the woodwork every two weeks declaring that the world is going to end.  They are inevitably wrong because as people, we will never know when it is coming.  I guess this could be a reason to defend Jocasta: She put it out of her mind, and didn't see it coming.