Epic Differences

So being that we just finished The Odyssey, the style and characteristics of the story and hero still linger on me. Here we have Oedipus in a situation, to which some could say that he caused himself, where he in given a prophetic revelation by Teresias. The revelation includes killing his father, sleeping with his mother, and then finally becoming as blind as the prophet himself. To me, I'm still stuck on the epic style, so how this all turns out really baffles me. In a world where this is an epic story, Oedipus would have prevented himself from killing his father, stopped his incestuous lust, and avoided becoming blind all by the work of his own hands. No. Instead, he carried out the first two points on the foretelling and then when he realized what he had done, he gouges his own eyes out with pins. Sophocles wasn't a very SOFT writer for the heart, I suppose.