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Examples Of Blindness In Oedipus The King

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“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn 't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” ― Søren Kierkegaard. This is the takeaway of the play King Oedipus by the Greek philosopher Sophocles written around 440 BC. The characters in the play are struggling to find the truth, yet blindness is a result of not the truth. Most of the characters are blinded by the facade of happiness surrounding them that until the King, Oedipus, searches for the truth about what actually happened to King Laius, that is when they uncover the real hardship underneath. The meaning of blindness in the play King Oedipus is the result of truth and knowledge. Teiresias, the prophet, is blind because he knows the whole truth. In this play, most of the characters are …show more content…

In this play, most of the characters are physically not blind beside the prophet Teiresias, which begs to differ what blindness actually means in this play. Teiresias being a prophet has provisions of knowledge and inevitably knows all of the truth about the people coming straight down from the Gods. It is very ironic how he is the only blind character in the play as he is not blinded by the truth. When Oedipus was searching for the killer of Laius, he summoned Teiresias and asked him to tell him the truth of what happened to the late king. When Teiresias claims that it was Oedipus’s hand that killed Laius, he did not believe him and called him out on that. 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. In this play, the physical meaning of being blind is knowing the whole dark

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He finds out that his mother is his wife and that he killed his father, The former king. Finding all of this out, Oedipus becomes his own prosecutor, and then his own judge and punisher. This story suggests that knowledge is vain and constrained in its capacity to convey happiness to the individuals who look for it. Sophocles certainly wasn’t timid about the symbol sight vs. blindness; words like

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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).

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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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Oedipus denies the truth and faces the consequences later on in the play. He gets furious when everyone is blaming him for killing Laius. As he is blaming others, hubris appears within his personality. Oedipus becomes blinder as hubris takes over him.

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Tragedy has been a part of drama since the time of the ancient greeks, an example of such a tragedy is Oedipus Rex by Sophocles. Since then tragedy has been adapted to adhere to different societal views and conventions, such that of the american theatre. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, is an example of that. Both plays fall into the category of tragedy, but exemplify it through different aspects in their respective heroes. The roles of Oedipus and Willy Loman as tragic heroes convey the meanings of the works as wholes through the use of the literary devices dramatic irony and imagery.

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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).

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1. Oedipus is a hero, but he represents most men at the same time. He has human characteristics and feelings, such as his curiosity towards the knowledge Teiresias possesses and his horror when he realizes his horrible actions. “If you know something about our pain tell us…Speak then! Tell us what will emerge.”

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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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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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After his accusations, Oedipus mocked Teiresias for his blindness, and told him to leave the palace as Oedipus had grown tired of him. Oedipus’s imperfect nature stopped him from learning the truth from Teiresias before it was too late, and lead to great loss at the end of the play. Throughout the story of Oedipus the King, the imperfectly noble nature of Oedipus is displayed for all to learn from. His temperamental and overzealous nature made him argumentative and combative when Teiresias tried to tell him the truth about the murder, causing Oedipus to accuse his good friend Creon of being a usurper.

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His costume is white showing purity, he wears a flower collar and a baton to be able to walk since he is a weak man. Even though he is a blind person he knows the truth and he can see the light or truth of this whole problem. He even tells Oedipus “Though you have your sight you cannot see in what misery you stand” (256-257). This shows that as much as Oedipus claims to be smart or have any wisdom he is still ignorant about facts since it would make him seem as a defective ruler. To further explain, when Tiresias gave him the horrendous news Oedipus said the following “ Why did you say nothing to set the townsmen free when the riddling Sphinx was here?

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He has been blinded to the truth ever since his whole life while Teiresias is blind and got no sight, but he is capable to see clearly the past, present and even the future (Rado, 1956). This brings the comparison between the physical sight and vision. Blindness and vision are two different things as brought out clearly in the play. Knowledge is in no way attached to the physical sight as one can be able to see but they had no vision as in the case of Oedipus the King and Teiresias (Calame, 1996). Oedipus feels that Teiresias is inferior compared even to him and cannot cause any threat to him, however, much he has the sight advantage; he has no exposure to the knowledge which Teiresias has.

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1063 Words | 5 Pages

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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Appearance can be misleading, the obvious things we see are not always how things are in real. In Oedipus the King, Sophocle exposes the trick of nature which is "what we see is not what is intended to be" and which turned to be a situational irony in the play, Oedipus the king. Blindness is not only apply to people who are blind.

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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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