A good author knows how to use imagery and descriptions to create a picture in the reader’s mind. When done correctly, the reader can take more out of the story. In addition to imagery, authors also use symbols, metaphors, and other literary devices to improve their writing. In Oedipus Rex, the author Sophocles uses sight as a motif and metaphor for blindness from the truth.
Throughout the play, sight adds dramatic structure to the storyline. In the climax of the play, Oedipus’ wife and mother, Jocasta, kills herself because she cannot live with the fact that she committed incest with her son and fulfilled the prophecy. The text states that, “[Oedipus and Second Messenger] saw [Jocasta] hanging, her body swaying from the cruel cord she had noosed about her neck… [Oedipus] loosed the rope and lowered her to the ground” (Sophocles 68-69). Oedipus finds his wife and mother hanging from her own doing. This adds dramatic structure because the climax stems from the fact that Jocasta has been blind to the truth until now.
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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). Jocasta believed that her son was dead; therefore, the prophecy could not be fulfilled. She lived her life with the ignorant belief that she was safe from marrying and having children with her son. She lived with the “illusion of knowledge.” Ignorance is a prominent theme throughout the