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Sight And Blindness In Sophocles Oedipus The King

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“Fear? What has a man to do with fear? Chance rules our lives, and the future is all unknown. Best live as we may, from day to day” (goodreads). Sophocles inpplys that no one should fear the future for the future will not change and to live in the present. Sophocles further shows this in his writings of Oedipus Rex to convey that no one can escape their fate; the symbols of Oedipus’ scars and sight vs. blindness help to reinforce this theme. The symbols of sight and blindness in Oedipus Rex represents knowledge and expresses denial. In the first scene Sophocles writes about an old wise man named Teiresias visiting Oedipus to try and help the young king find the murderer of king Laius; during this visit Teiresias states, “You cannot see the …show more content…

ows that Oedipus has unknowingly set the prophecy into motion by not seeing what the blind man was telling him about his parents and denying the truth in Teiresias’ words even though he has been doing everything to avoid his fate and trying to live normally while Teiresias is trying to …show more content…

In the ending of the play after Oedipus has took his own sight, he is exiled for murdering king Laius and Oedipus states, “Death take the man who unbound my feet on that hillside and delivered me from death to life! What life? If only I had died, this weight of monstrous doom could not have dragged me and my darlings down” (Sophocles Exodos. 1300-1305). This means that as a baby Oedipus was set away to die with his feet bound but then a man came along and took pity and freed him. Because of this action it allowed for Oedipus to grow up to then become king and marry Jocasta thus setting the prophecy into motion to be fulfilled. This shows that no mortal can change the path that the gods have set for them. The God that Stated Oedipus’ fate was the son of Zeus, Apollo. This is found out through one of Oedipus’ messengers that read the oracle of the gods and when Oedipus found out he stated, “Apollo said though his prophet that I was the man who should marry his own mother, shed his father’s blood with his own hands” ( Sophocles 3. 945-947). Even when the prophet of a god tells Oedipus that he will do all these horrible acts he still denies it and continues to try and find out the truth of who his parents really are and who killed the late king Lausis while avoiding what the gods are saying will happen if he

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In the novel Oedipus the king,what Sophocles strives to reveal to us about his society is that although the truth can often hurt, knowledge to the greeks was very important to them because they were a people who needed to be informed about everything. In Sophocles time gods were revered more than anything, and because of how powerful these divine beings were it was not in any human's control to question them since they could not confront these all divine beings who controlled their fate and actions. Throughout the novel Sophocles intentions are to show the readers the concept of sight and blindness as well as the idea of fate and freewill, greek plays in these ancient times were designed to incorporate throughout the story dramatic irony which a theme that revolves around the story..

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But now in a reversed position, Oedipus is a man that is physically blind but in truth is not. All things considered, Oedipus was in denial and was blinded from truth. As he came closer to the truth he finds himself praying that the prophecy will not come true. His earnestness causes a panic within him that leads him to abuse his power into changing his destiny. But as a result, all thing must come to an end especially Oedipus’s physical sight.

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Upon receiving the prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother, he unquestioningly embraced its validity without challenging it. However, if he employed his common knowledge and free will, the course of events might have been altered. For instance, he tragically killed Laius in a dispute that could have been avoided with restraint. Additionally, when tasked with uncovering the murderer of the former king of Thebes, Oedipus willingly accepted the challenge, firmly believing it was his destiny to expose the killer and save his city. Unfortunately, his unwavering trust in fate and blind devotion to prophecies ultimately led to his downfall.

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Although he was ashamed of the life he had been living, he realized that the mistakes were his own, and no one can bear the weight but him. He even said it himself “No one but me can bear this weight.” The grave consequences which Oedipus suffered in the end consisted of the loss of his mother/ wife by suicide, as well as his grief becoming a threat to himself, as he stabbed his own eyes out, blinding him permanently. After suffering dreadful pain from these actions in grief, Oedipus went on to face the other consequences given by the gods and Creon. He cursed himself many times in the book saying that whoever killed Laius should be banished or killed, and he would even go on to be cursed by his wrongful actions of incest.

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Then Teiresias said “‘Have your eyes, and do not see your own damnation?’” (Sophocles, 37). Teiresias being the only one blinded at this moment of the play was using a play on words here. He is saying that you are the one with eyes, yet you cannot see the actual truth. By the end of the play when Oedipus finds out the whole truth about his lineage, he ends up blinding himself.

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In the play Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, Oedipus, king of Thebes, is guilty of murdering the late king Laïos, despite the fact that he did not know he was his father. Oedipus was under a prophecy that said he would kill his father and sleep with his mother. Both came true, and he payed the price for it. He was banished from Thebes. Many have wondered if he really deserved this fate.

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Oedipus is ignorant to the truth of the prophecy which he is supposed to fulfill. He tells Teiresias, “I’ll tell you what I think; You planned it, you had it done, you all but killed him with your own hands: if you had eyes, I’d say the crime was yours, and yours alone” (19). Even though Teiresias is being honest with him, Oedipus still chooses to be ignorant and ignore him; he can’t accept the truth. Moreover, Jocasta is also ignorant to the truth of the prophecy. Daniel J. Broostin once said that, “The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge” (Goodreads).

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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

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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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The Greeks believed that they were controlled by fate, or destiny, and that they could not escape it. Oedipus’ fate was that he would murder his father and marry his mother. He moved away from his, not known to him, adoptive father in order to protect him and wound up murdering his birth father, King Laios of Thebes. After Laios’ death, Oedipus married the widowed queen Jocasta, not knowing that she is his birth mother. Some believe, because he was ignorant of his crimes, that he is innocent.

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Teiresias is blind but knows the truth of the past, present, and future of Oedipus. The reverse occurs when the truth is revealed, and Oedipus seeks blindness to hide away from the same truth he claimed to have been aware

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Tiresias reveals that Oedipus has been blind to the truth his whole life and when he finally does find the truth, he loses his physical vision. Due to the truth, Oedipus blinds himself. In this case, those who are blind ultimately do have a higher vision- the truth. The theme of sight versus blindness in Sophocles’ work Oedipus the King is portrayed through

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Blindness can mean that someone is unable to see or someone does not know the truth. Blindness in Oedipus means that someone does not know the truth. Blindness serves as a motif in multiple ways in Oedipus the King. The motif of blindness in Oedipus the King, written by Sophocles in 430 B.C., keeps Oedipus and Jocasta from the truth they are seeking.

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Similarly, Oedipus also knows of his prophecy. Likewise, the priestess saw a trait in Oedipus that will lead to his destiny, which is his lack of judgment that leads to anger. The prophecy states that Oedipus will kill his father and marry his mother. In similar fashion, Oedipus runs away from the prophecy in hopes of avoiding his destiny and not look into himself to see why the priestess’s words will be true. However, Oedipus unknowingly fulfills half of his prophecy when he was traveling to another town.

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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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