Sight And Blindness In Sophocles Oedipus The King

“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

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

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