He blind because of his arrogance. After the plague hits Thebes, Oedipus orders to see Tiresias and when he does he lets his arrogance get in the way. Once he became arrogant he blamed Tiresias. Tiresias they replied, “All right, King: you mock my blindness. Hear me well: you have your
The field is freshly raked, the sun is blaring in, the game is beginning, but before she is ready, the ball is hit. With the spot light on her, she quickly stumbles over her feet and misses the ball. “Stupid rock” she mumbles under her breath. Her parents protect her with words like “good job” then she proceeds to smile. Ignorance is bliss, for some.
Oedipus’s main issue was he married mother, he killed his own father, and so the curse of the Thebes occured. When Tiresias told him the truth, he started to deny Tiresias saying and began to insult him. “ It does but not for you, old man. You’ve lost your power, stone-blind, stone deaf-senses, eyes blinds as a stone!” Sophocles, line 422-424, page 278.
Oedipus discovers the body and is in so much grief he uses the golden pins that held Jocasta’s dress and “spears the pupils of his eyes” (93). This unbearable mishap is the last article of the proclamation that Oedipus carries out. Furthermore, in an attempt to keep his children, Creon advises him to “not be the master in everything. What you once won and held did not stay with you all your lifelong” (107). Oedipus was once a man that was not physically blind but in truth he was.
Oedipus became blind by trying to escape his fate, as well as the pride and arrogance he had developed. In the text the author states, “And if this killer lives within my house, and if I know him, then may I myself receive the curse I just now laid upon his head” (43).
Sight, insight, Blindness Play a huge role in trdgeys. the story of Oedipus the king that we read in the module relayed on sight and insight heavily. The seeer know the truth of Oedipus's before everyone else did. Oedipus remained blind thought most of the story but then begun to see what he had done. Light and darkness also play a role in the story but not a typical one instead of one character being the light and another being the dark.
When he became physically blind, he was able to learn to live with the truth of the prophecy (Haque and Kabirchowdhury 118). Oedipus demonstrates his final acceptance of his fate given by the gods in his final conversation with Kreon- “Give me what I ask for...drive me out of this country as quickly as may be to a place where no human voice can ever greet me” (Sophocles 1268). Oedipus lost his ability to see, and along with it his hubris. All he was left with was a forced exodus and a complete reliance on the gods.
Oedipus’ blindness, figuratively speaking, was based on his perspective. He may not be entirely at fault for the reasons behind the plague on Thebes, but it was due to his ignorance which led him to his downfall. In Oedipus’ perspective, it was logical to leave Corinth after hearing about the prophecy due to the fact the he believed that his parents were the king and queen of Corinth. His blindness to the idea that they were not his
The conceit that Wealth is blind dates at least back to the complaints of Hipponax (6th cent.). The attempt to cure his blindness, though, occurs for the first time in extant literature in Aristophanes’ Wealth, produced in 388. This paper argues that Aristophanes’ innovative treatment of Wealth’s blindness echoes the transformation of Oedipus in Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus, produced in 402. This is not to suggest that Wealth is an all-out parody of Oedipus at Colonus. Wealth’s engagement with Oedipus at Colonus operates on visual, situational, and thematic parallels, rather than direct verbal parody.
With the heroic light the people of Thebes have him under, he gladly baths in it. In an obstinate fashion he tells his subjects he will rid the kingdom of the plague by finding King Laius’ killer and goes forth to do so. This leads him to look to Tiresias, a prophetic man without sight. Oedipus then commands to get answers that will help him uncover the mystery of the death of the previous King. Tiresias respectively rejects to answering the questions remembering his place but Oedipus forges on his path for answers and an argument ensues: “…You are blind in mind and ears as well as in your eyes”
Having been given many hints in his life, Oedipus cannot detect and know the truth. He is blind, to the extent that he could not even understand his life and does not even want to accept his origin. In this way, we get to know the contrast between eyesight and insight (Calame, 1996). After Oedipus realizing and coming to know the truth, he gets out his eyes so as to have the vision (Calame, 1996). He removes his eyes so as not to see his children and siblings who would remind him of his actions.
As more information is uncovered, Oedipus’ legacy is exponentially diminished as a childhood prophecy revolving around Oedipus, murdering his father and marrying his mother, is brought to light. Knowledge possesses the power to catalyse devastation in stages as demonstrated through Oedipus’ ignorance, his overwhelming curiosity, and his psychological anguish. From the beginning, Oedipus was raised in a legion of lies, believing Merope and Polybus to be his true parents. This cloak of ignorance not only shielded Oedipus from the knowledge of his biological parents, but allowed the prophecy to act as a catalyst for his fleeing of Corinth.
This personal tragedy for Oedipus was discovering the truth and becoming blind because of it. It completed the prophecy that Oedipus had received from Tiresias, the blind prophet. Tiresias told Oedipus that he had come into Thebes with his sight but would leave Thebes without it. The physical blindness that Oedipus had also left him with wrongs of his life, with nothing to look at Oedipus was forced to think about his life, wrongdoings, and what had happened. Essentially he was forced to deal with it.
Oedipus has overlooked the divine sight that Tiresias withholds and denies that Tiresias is the hand of Apollo. The arrogance that Oedipus is presenting after Tiresias has accused him as the murder, furthermore the king is struck back in the belief, ‘“It is – excepting you; for you are blinding your ears and eyes and brains and everything”’
But, he was also a good man, father, husband, and king, and for this reason he is mourned over for his loss of fortune. One of the themes in Oedipus Rex is physical and metaphorical blindness. In Greek culture, those who were physically blind were said to have metaphorical "vision" and were messengers of the gods. For example, In the beginning, Oedipus is blind, not physically, but metaphorically because he does not know the
