Light Vs Evil In Oedipus

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.

In the play, Oedipus Rex, written by Sophocles, an honourable and admirable Greek king named Oedipus rules the town of Thebes. He is left in mental turmoil and decay as his unknown, corrupt and immoral past is slowly revealed during his quest to find the culprit who murdered King Laius. The newly exposed past suddenly transforms his glory and respect into shame and humiliation. After he learns about his wicked past he stabs his eyes, which lead to his blindness. During the course of the play, references to blindness and vision constantly recur, giving the reader an enhanced and more insightful look into the themes of the play. Some themes that are expressed through these references include truth and knowledge, guilt, and freewill versus

The pursuit of justice is an endeavor that many find to be challenging and a quest itself, as one will come across various trials and complications that may stop them in their pursuit or may mislead them. As humans, we find moral correctness and righteousness a very appealing state to be in, as justice will act as a platform to satisfy the desire for this correctness. In Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, we meet our miserable anti-hero, Oedipus, in his pursuit for truth and righting the wrong of the plague that is affecting his people of Thebes. As he makes efforts to solve this problem, he comes to find out that he is the source of the issue, thus exposing the tragic flaw of Oedipus and effectively making this play a very effective Greek tragedy. This pursuit of righteousness ends up being the downfall of Oedipus. In Sophocles’ Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex, Oedipus pursues justice through his realization of his past, his interactions with various characters in the play, and comes to understand more of justice in his situation through his reactions to adversity in this play, in order to portray a questionably successful pursuit of justice.

Oedipus implies that the blind prophet should have no discernment because he is physically blind, thus Oedipus remains obstinate in his close-minded outlook. Teiresias, can see the truth and Oedipus, ironically, is becoming a blind man. Oedipus wanted to get rid of Teiresias, “so long as you are here, you’ll be a stumbling block and a vexation” (494-495). Closing your eyes to the truth makes it a stumbling block. Oedipus does not have site required to see the truth, his lack of true sight consequently caused ensuing vexation. The irony is that he is making pronouncements to get rid of the stumbling block, not recognizing that he himself is the stumbling block because of his failure to see the truth. Dramatic irony is present when Oedipus pledges to punish and drive Laius’s murderer out of this land, ignorant of his own actions, resulting in eventual self-indictment (160-165). Foreshadowing is evident as he pronounces judgment on himself prophetically, through his pursuit to “drive out [the] pollution from [his] land” (109). Furthermore, Oedipus becomes annoyed at Teiresias’s because he is speaking in riddles (487). When Teiresias stated, “but it is in the riddle answering you are strongest” he is simply voicing the fact that Oedipus is unable to see the truth (488). When we choose to ignore or cover up the truth it becomes a riddle.

The play, Oedipus the King, written by Sophocles is set in the plague stricken city of Thebes. Oedipus, their king is determined to get rid of the plague. Sophocles extensively uses the motif of sight vs blindness both literally and symbolically within the play, sight is juxtaposed with ‘truth’ and ‘knowledge”.

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.

Jocasta is forced out of denial and commits suicide at the same time that Oedipus discovers the truth. She feels so guilty for her despicable actions which could not alter the prophecy’s course and for her incestuous sins that she takes her own life to end the suffering.

With his great knowledge and accomplishment establishing him as a man of insight and honor he is crowned King of Thebes. Oedipus, unwilling to hear or see truth, smites a blind man in the midst of his own ignorance and denial to reality. Teiresias, a blind prophet, is stood before Oedipus to reveal his visions about the identity of the murderer. “PAGE 11/40 TEIRESIAS thou hast not spared To twit me with my blindness--thou hast eyes, Yet see'st not in what misery thou art fallen, Nor where thou dwellest nor with whom for mate. Dost know thy lineage? Nay, thou know'st it not, And all unwitting art a double foe...” Teiresias reveals Oedipus' fate to him. He reveals that Oedipus doesn't know who his true parents are, and is living a doubly bad fate. Oedipus becomes engaged and accusatory of Teiresias at the thought of someone threatening his preconceived reality. “PAGE 10/40 OEDIPUS There is strength where there is truth, but not in you Oedipus. You don't possess this quality, for you are blind in your ears, mind, and eyes.” Oedipus even goes as far as to suggest that Teiresias murdered King Laius. “PAGE 10/40 OEDIPUS Thou methinks thou art he, I think that you are he who planned this crime, and he who even committed it too..” Oedipus, self righteous and pompous, believes that he can do no wrong. His ego is so big that he tears down and slanders

Sophocles uses foreshadowing to offer hints about Oedipus’s destiny in the play that allow audience to make reasonable predictions about what would eventually happen in the story. When Oedipus insults Tiresias because he hears that he is the curse and problem in Thebes, and he refuses to the prophecy and gets angry at the prophet, calling him a liar. However, Oedipus never realizes that Tiresias is the very one who foreshadows Oedipus’ tragic fate when he says “in thine eyes now light, but then Darkness” (line 417). The quote foreshadows that Oedipus will end up being blind although his eyes are full of light now, he will lose the light in the end. Tiresias’ words are eventually proved to be true when in the end Oedipus stabs out his eyes, being aware of his identity and his tragic destiny. It is very ironic that Tiresias, who tells the truth, is a blind man. Sophocles also uses words from Jocasta, Oedipus’ mother and wife, to foreshadow Oedipus’ upcoming tragedy. She says “and casts him to die. Through both his feet a blade of iron they drove” (Lines 720-21). The idea in this quote is that Jocasta is providing hints to the audience that Oedipus has hit part of the prophecy because he still hobbles and cannot walk like a healthy man due to his injury. Oedipus should have notice the similarities between his feet and the prophet, or maybe his hubris blinds him from seeing the truth. Throughout the play, Sophocles foreshadows in many events and gives the audience hints about

In this case, Oedipus has a certain prophecy that he needs to kill his father and sleep with his mother. Doing so, he can break the curse on Thebes and he will not be shamed upon for being a king and letting his city fall. Oedipus was trying to avoid the absurd prophecy by leaving his adopted parents and living a life on his own. But, on his journey, Oedipus killed his father and married his mother. Oedipus believed they were strangers until Creon explained everything. The love of his life Jocasta, was revealed to be his birth mother. He had fulfilled his prophecy without intention. Jocasta could not take the stressful humiliation and life she had just taken on, so she committed suicide. When Jocasta's death occurred, Oedipus was filled with sorrow and decided he couldn't dare show go out in the world knowing what he just did. So Oedipus unpinned the golden brooches from the robe Jocasta was hanging in, and stabbed his eyes repeatedly while pleading “they will never see the crime I have committed or had done upon me! Dark eyes, now in the days to come look on forbidden faces, do not recognize those who those you long for.” On page 516 lines 192-196, this shows his unhappy fate from the hardships in life.

Finding out who his true father is seems important for someone who has just been told he will kill his father. Nor is Oedipus particularly intelligent about the way he conducts himself. Even though he did not know that Laius and Jocasta were his parents, he still does kill a man old enough to be his father and marry a woman old enough to be his mother. One would think that a man with as disturbing a prophesy over his head as Oedipus would be very careful about who he married or killed. Blindly he pursues the truth when others warn him not to; although he has already fulfilled the prophesy, he does not know it, and if he left well enough alone, he could continue to live in blissful ignorance. But instead he stubbornly and foolishly rummages through his past until he discovers the awful truth. In this way, Jocasta 's death and his blindness are his own fault.

Oedipus only had to open his eyes and realize what the blind prophet was saying described him. Then, he wouldn’t have went down the way he did. When Oedipus finally came to realization, he figured out he had killed his father, married his mother, and also had kids with her. He was in complete shock. At the moment Oedipus found out about his real self, he says “My god it’s all true. I killed him...I made love to her...and raised a family that never should have been born. I can no longer bear to see the light” (Oedipus the King 62). With this, he stabs out his eyes in horror. Not only was Oedipus blind to the fact Jocasta and

Another example is when Oedipus said to Tiresias, "You've lost your power, stone-blind, stone-deaf - senses, eyes blind as stone!”. By the end of the story, Oedipus was almost exactly that. This play also has multiple themes including fate. One can not overcome their own fate no matter what precautions they try to take because ultimately their life is dictated by events beyond anybody’s control. An example from the play is when Oedipus is told by an astrologer that he will marry his mother and kill his father. To prevent this from happening he leaves the country as a precaution, but little did he know that he did not actually know his true identity and actually returned to his home country. Oedipus does end up killing his father and marrying his mother just as the astrologer predicted, because even though he tried to run away from his own fate, destiny always has a way of working things out and placed him where he was supposed to be. Another example of theme is sight and blindness, there are references to eyesight throughout the play. Although clear-eyed Oedipus is blind to the truth about his real identity and crimes, the prophet Tiresias who is literally blind, sees the truth and relays what is revealed to him. This theme proves a point that although Tiresias is blind, he sees more than Oedipus

Throughout the play Oedipus is given clues to his past and the fate that is to come, the moment that he gouges his eyes out shows these clues that he has missed. Jocasta says wildly, “In the name of heaven, don’t proceed! For your own life’s sake, stop! And I’ve been tortured long enough.” (59) This shows a moment of caution for Oedipus to not continue to seek the truth. The dramatic irony of this situation illuminates the horrors that are to come because of fate as well as Oedipus’ free will. Oedipus: “Laius was killed—I thought I caught the words—where three highways meet?” Jocasta: “So they said. That is how the story goes.” (41) Oedipus is first hearing the true story of the late king’s murder and seems to be beginning to realize that it was he who did the killing. Even though this could be his illuminating moment, Oedipus is unwilling to accept this fact and must hear

One of the symbols used throughout the play is of Light versus Dark which represent what is known versus hidden. An example of this symbolism is when Oedipus and Creon are discussing about Laius' death and Oedipus states, “ Then once more I must bring what is dark to light” (Prologue l 134 ). Here Oedipus talks about making it known to find the killers for his own safety since