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Oedipus Rex Critical Lens

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In Oedipus Rex, Sophocles displays a tragedy in which a righteous man is plagued by his hubris, leading to his inevitable downfall. To cleanse himself from his torment, Oedipus is left with no other choice than to painfully rip out the sinful eyes that deceived him. The act of Oedipus gouging out his eyes reveals Sophocles’ didactic purpose: one's physical eyes can be blind towards the truth.
When a vicious plague hits Thebes, Oedipus begins to display signs of pride blinding him from the right course of action. During the King’s aggressive interrogation of Teiresias, the blind seer warns, “I do not intend to torture myself or you”(p.18). Oedipus ignores the elder man’s plea and instead verbally attacks him, accusing him of being a, “decrepit …show more content…

To release himself of his prideful ways, Oedipus took it upon himself to discard the eyes that failed to see the truth. To amend the situation he, “raised [the ornament] down straight into his eyeballs.” University of Pennsylvania Professor, Peter T. Struck, established a literary commentary in which he wrote, “by blinding himself, as opposed to committing suicide, Oedipus achieves a kind of surrogate death that intensifies his suffering.” Struck agrees that by committing this self-inflicted retribution, Oedipus is redeeming himself for his sins in a way that death would not allow him to do. Now that Oedipus is finally able to see the truth, he recognizes his mistakes and exclaims, “I don’t deserve to live among you…send me from Thebes”(p.80). He is taking responsibility for his actions and will endure this punishment to redeem himself. Struck states, ”Oedipus is dead, for he receives none of the benefits of the living; at the same time, he is not dead by definition and so his suffering cannot end.” Struck writes this to emphasize how Oedipus’ departure is a fitting punishment for his crimes. Through his self-exile, Oedipus reinforces Sophocles’ didactic purpose: our physical eyes can be blind towards the

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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.

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With the realization of his demise, Oedipus tries to protect himself from punishment and shame by gouging out his own eyes and exiling himself out to die in the place destiny prevented him from dying originally. After many years of luxurious living, Oedipus’s predestined fate tears his life apart and returns him to the place he should have died as an infant, the mountain. Through the use of, departure, initiation, and return, Sophocles displays the journey of Oedipus. Not only is Oedipus the King evidence of the use of the hero’s journey throughout many famous plays, movies, and books across all cultures and time periods, but it also seen as a perfect tragedy, in which the audience experiences both pity and fear for the main

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Blindness Vs. Sight In the stories Oedipus the King and Antigone, the kings who ruled Thebes are very troublesome men. Oedipus is the main character in Oedipus the King, whom is blinded by killing his father. In the end, he marries his mother and punishes himself for his sins.

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Oedipus Rex essay Final draft Oedipus certainly deserved his fate. Oedipus and his actions are clearly disrespect to the gods , he faces the fate he deserves. He was doing things that would eventually lead up to the unfortunate event of his death , he was even warned by the great and wise Teiresias , but he being himself was to stubborn and did not listen. All the things Teiresias said would happen became the truth. He killed his father, married his mother, yet he tempted his fate , he deserved everything that came his way .

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Oedipus deems the acceptable punishment for the perpetrator to be “ let that man drag out his life in agony, step by painful step” (lines 283-5). This is true dramatic irony because the reader knows that he will become the victim of his own punishment, allowing the reader to understand Oedipus’ true opinion of a “just” punishment. This same punishment is received by the public as too severe with the chorus saying “better to die than be alive and blind” (line 1498). Given that the chorus plays a vital role in sharing the thoughts and opinions of the public directly with the audience, this quote allows the reader to understand that the punishment was not seen as “just” by the public. This contrast in opinion between the chorus and Oedipus accentuates the difficulty in delivering an agreed-upon, and “just” punishment, something that is developed extensively in both

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1378 Words | 6 Pages

The symbolic implication that comes of Oedipus blinding himself is he has seen too much evil and would rather see nothing than more evil. “What’s there left for me to see…?” P.44 Oedipus here say he has seen too much and that what he has seen will taint everything he sees thereafter. I do not find this courageous nor heroic, I believe blinded himself to not see what he had done, to not be reminded of his deeds, even by seeing his

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Critic Northrop Frye claims that tragic heroes “seem the inevitable conductors of the power about them… Conductors may of course be instruments as well as victims of the divisive lightning.” A perfect example of this assertion would be King Oedipus in the classical tragic play “Oedipus Rex,” written by Sophocles, where Oedipus, himself, becomes the victim of his doomed fate. As someone who was born and raised of royal blood, he becomes too proud and ignorant, believing that he was too powerful for his fate. Using the metaphor “great trees [are] more likely to be struck by lightning than a clump of grass,” Frye compares the heroic but unfortunate Oedipus to the great trees as they both are apt to experience victimization of tragic situations

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Oedipus experienced blindness figuratively and eventually literally. The concept of sight and blindness in Oedipus Rex teaches many lessons. One lesson is that seeing something is based on one’s perspective, therefore it will not always be experienced the same way among different people. It depends on the way people perceive the information they receive.

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Oedipus the King, by Sophocles, is really a story about the necessity of placing more faith in others and their counsel than in oneself and one’s own beliefs. Repeatedly the titular character is pleaded with to listen to and accept the advice of those around him and each time he refuses to obey. Ultimately, Oedipus’ tendency to do perform the actions he would prefer to do rather than to allow his family to help guide him leads to his downfall and loss of the throne. A common characteristic of Greek tragedy is the “fatal flaw” of the main character and how this flaw leads to the character’s misfortune.

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754 Words | 4 Pages

Throughout the play Oedipus the King by Sophocles, there is continual use of vision and blindness foreshadowing the events to come near the end of the play due to Oedipus’ ignorance. Ironically, most of the main characters with their sight still intact are blind to the truth and revelations that come to pass while the few that are blind see what is to come and what becomes of those spoken of in the prophecy. In a paradoxical trend, sight in the play can equal deception or ignorance while blindness represents truth or revelation. Oedipus is a brash man.

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686 Words | 3 Pages

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.

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1063 Words | 5 Pages

His hubris, pride, let the truth be seen as false or not be seen at all. Second, Oedipus was physically blind. His physical blindness played into the role of the Greek tragedy. The blindness completed the tragedy for Oedipus. Every Greek Tragedy is supposed to end with the main characters experiencing their own personal tragedy.

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Oedipus was a tragic hero he was seen as a great man and was king,but he fell to misfortune because of his disability to see past his pride and anger which led to his demise. By not being able to see past his pride and anger Oedipus was not able to to avoid his prophetic destiny. He was blinded by his pride and anger so much that it became his tragic flaw ultimately leading him to his

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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

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The plot is thoroughly integrated with the characterization of Oedipus, for it is he who impels the action forward in his concern for Thebes, his personal rashness, and his ignorance of his past. His flaws are a hot temper and impulsiveness, but without those traits his heroic course of self-discovery would never occur. Fate for Sophocles is not something essentially external to human beings but

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