Blind To The Truth In Oedipus The King

The Greek drama “Oedipus The King” evidently leads to the unveiling of a tragedy. Oedipus, the protagonist of the play uncovers his tragic birth story and the curse he had been baring his whole life. Oedipus is notorious for his personal insight that helped him defeat Sphinx, which lead him to becoming the king of Thebes. He is admired by the people of Thebes and is considered to be a mature, inelegant and a rational leader. From his birth, his story began with a prophecy that Oedipus would grow up to kill his father and marry his mother. Through out the play numerous people, who tell him of his unknown past, visit Oedipus. Blind to the truth he casts them away until a blind man named Therisis gives a sight of truth to Oedipus. As Oedipus learns the truth he realizes the great evil his life carries. After finding his wife and also mother hung in her bedroom, Oedipus blinds himself with the gold pins that held Jocasta’s robe. Oedipus blind to the truth is finally able to see when the old blind man visits him and tells him the truth about his life. Both metaphorically and physically sight plays a significant role in understanding the irony of a blind man seeing the truth while Oedipus who isn’t blind doesn’t seem to the truth that’s right in front of him.

Oedipus the King by Sophocles’ is intertwined with many powerful themes and messages, establishing what real vision and real sight are. Sophocles’ play also demonstrates that sometimes in life we have to experience great loss in order to rediscover our true selves. In Oedipus’s quest for truth, lack of self-control, ignorance and tragic self-discovery prevail. Physical vision does not necessarily guarantee insight, nor impart truth. Intertwined with dramatic and cosmic irony, all of these elements contribute to the major theme of blindness and sight, depicting wisdom

People may be blinded to truth, and may not realize what truth is, even if truth is standing in front of them. They will never see truth becase they are blind to it. In Oedipus Rex by Sophocles it is easy to see how blindness affects the transition of the story. It is said that blind people see “in a different manner” because they sense the world in a totally diferent way, such as Teiresias in the play. Oedipus Rex is a tragedy due to the content the Sophocles, the playwright, decided to include, first, murdering his father, king Laius, then marrying his mother, Jocasta, and ending by blinding himself. Oedipus has been blinded to the truth all his life. Eventually, when he seeks the truth he intentionally loses his physical vision, and

When you think of blindness you think of sight and when you think of ignorance you think of knowledge. Throughout the play Oedipus, sight and blindness imagery is very noticeable, along with ignorance and knowledge. Sophocles creates Oedipus as a character of ignorance, confidence, and good insight. The story starts out as Oedipus is the son of King Laius and Queen Jocasta. The oracle told the parents that their son would kill his father and marry his mother. The parents refused to let this happen and sent the servant to pin Oedipus’s feet together and leave him on the mountain to die. The messenger knew this was not right and stepped in immediately to help the poor child. As Oedipus grew older he found out the truth about his life and why certain things happened. Over time, Oedipus's blindness shows him the lack of knowledge he knew about his true life story.

In Oedipus his backstory is important because it is the basis for his uncertain vision. Oedipus the King was the son of King Laius and Queen Jocasta, but because of a Prophecy that Laius would be killed by his son, he was ordered to be bound and left on the mountain to die by his parents a few days after his birth. Instead the shepherd who was given the duty gave the newborn to a shepherd from a nearby kingdom to rear as his own. That shepherd instead, gave him to Polybus, the King of Corinth who, unable to produce children of his own, raised Oedipus as his son. Years later Oedipus unknowingly killed Laius, and then solved the riddle of the Sphinx, becoming the King of Thebes and winning the hand of Jocasta (his birth mother) in marriage. Several years later, when told of his deeds, Jocasta hanged herself and Oedipus tore his eyes out.

Sophocles’ tragedy, Oedipus the King, stresses the idea of who is blind and who can see by demonstrating that one cannot simply just run away from their mistakes and issues. As the story unfolds, each character makes several attempts to hide from the truth. Though the foul truths may seem to be masked within the darkness, they are eventually brought into the light, shining over the devious lies placed before it. Nevertheless, the real question lies within whether or not the person receiving the truth can endure it. By coping with the truth, one sees, but by denying it, one stays blind. One way or another, however, problems arise, secrets come out, and chaos ensues because one cannot stay blinded from the truth forever.

Oedipus thought his life was great. Feeling powerful and almighty, Oedipus was wonderful at solving riddles, but did not like the answer to the riddle of who he really was. Although many told him to stop trying to figure out the answer, it was not in his nature to give up. Oedipus thought he could see everything, but he was actually blind of the truth about his life until the end.

In many countries around the world, ignorance carries a considerable weight in politics, households, between friends, and in other vicinities. This ignorance can be depicted as blindness of the mind. In the Greek philosopher Sophocles’ play, Oedipus the King, Oedipus’ family and friends share their blindness in the fact that they love Oedipus and don’t have a desire to know the truth of his ruined past. They keep things from Oedipus and end up withholding the actualities of life from themselves in the process. Sophocles urges the reader that the love people clutch to can cause people to lose sight of the truth. He then expands on the blindness, demonstrating the idea that when the truth comes out, it pulls the love a person feels for another into darkness with it. Love is fragile, and can be easily destroyed by the opening of the eye, causing families to crumble underneath.

" The blindness Tiresias speaks about is the truths that blind Oedipus' judgement. When the truth is revealed, it is then that Oedipus is truly able to see. Oedipus feels guilty, "I stand revealed at last-cursed in my birth, cursed in marriage, cursed in the lives, I cut down with these hands...blind in the darkness--blind. He then, voluntarily blinds himself, with broaches from Jocasta's

Oedipus Rex is a form of literature that teaches life’s simplest lessons that people have trouble accepting today; the truth will always find its way out. Oedipus was just an ordinary man, raised by who he thought were his real parents, was strong and clever, saved the city of Thebes from the Sphinx and became the king. Though Oedipus might’ve seemed like a hero at first, accusations were made against him about the murder of King Lauis and that’s where everything unraveled. No matter how hesitant and neglective he was discovering the truth, it all started making sense to him. Oedipus had no idea he married his own mother and had kids with her as well. However, Jocasta thought she could outsmart the prophecy by sending Oedipus to his death, as a baby, but the messenger and the Shepherd saved him and Oedipus’s destiny had yet to come true. This proves that one cannot stop something from happening, and cannot hide from the truth

Blindness plays a two-fold part in Sophocles’ tragedy “Oedipus the King.'; First, Sophocles presents blindness as a physical disability affecting the auger Teiresias, and later Oedipus; but later, blindness comes to mean an inability to see the evil in one’s actions and the consequences that ensue. The irony in this lies in the fact that Oedipus, while gifted with sight, is blind to himself, in contrast to Teiresias, blind physically, but able to see the evil to which Oedipus has fallen prey to. Tragically, as Oedipus gains the internal gift of sight, he discards his outward gift of sight. Sight, therefore, seems to be like good and evil, a person may only choose one.

In a way he was similar to a child, blind to the world around him and carefree. As his story progressed, he began to mature into a teenage stage and become more aware of his surroundings. When Oedipus arrived at the end of his story, he finally began to grow into adulthood, fully conscious of his deeds and able to carry their weight. Oedipus, now visionless, possessed metaphorical sight, no longer blind to the fate the gods had decreed for him. Clearly, Sophocles used vision and blindness to illustrate that wisdom, knowledge, and understanding are not attributes limited to only those with

In the tragedy, Oedipus, there are characters who are physically blind, blind to the power of fate, and those who are blind to knowledge. In many instances, characters such as Oedipus, Laius, and Jocasta have many moments of blindness to the power of fate and knowledge, even though they can physically see. These characters are not insightful, although they can physically see, while one character, Tiresias, is physically blind, he is able to see others’ fate.

The most famous scene in Sophocles’, Oedipus Rex, is when Oedipus gouges out his eyes. But, that’s not the only example of sight and blindness in this play. In Sophocles ' plays there was always extensive content where he paid considerable attention to the element of “spectacle” in his plays. When observing the theme of vision, it invites the audience to look at the action with a double perspective, through their own eyes and through the eyes of those on stage. Within this play, sight and blindness are the underlying themes. Sight is commonly associated with light or positive overtones, and blindness is attached to darkness or negative undertones. The approach to describing blindness deals with not only physical blindness but also metaphorical blindness. Oedipus ' blindness changes from bad to worse at different scenes of the play. Although the word "blindness" seems quite simple, it can be very debatable. Blindness or the inability to “see” consist of two elements; Oedipus 's ability to see vs his desire to see. Throughout many scenes, the two elements are used in pattern form. Some scholars mention the two aspects of the play in addition to discussing the theme of knowledge. Lazlo Versenyi, Thomas Hoey, Marjorie Champlain, analyze the play from different perspectives. Versenyi says the play was “a tragedy of self- knowledge”, with the use of terms

From the very beginning of Oedipus, one can see that the main character of Oedipus is very sure about who he is and where he has come from. One of the most important motifs of the story is the idea of metaphorical blindness, and how Oedipus claims that everyone else around him is blind, and he is the only one that can see. However, what Oedipus soon finds out is that he has no idea who he is, and that all along he has been blind himself. Sophocles makes Oedipus suffer because of the fact that he actually has no idea who he is, and almost avoids figuring it out. It takes a defining moment for it to dawn on Oedipus that he is not who he thought he was. Oedipus’ blindness seems to have been his downfall, but the more prevalent question that