Oedipus Blindness

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.

Another aspect of the theme that was observed through references of blindness and sight is guilt and disgrace. From the beginning of the play, Sophocles establishes the theme of guilt which can be seen throughout the play, as Oedipus tries to find the person who was guilty for the murder of King Laius. His search to find the guilty individual leads him to the truth which is that he murdered King Laius, who was his father, and that he married his mother Jocaste. After finding this out, he enters an epiphany of guilt and shame as he recognizes this morbid fact. He says after blinding himself “If I had eyes, I do not know how I could bear the sight of my father, when I came to the house of Death,

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.

Hubris and Denial: Oedipus's hubris blinds him to the opportunity of his culpability within the tragic occasions unfolding around him, illustrating his lack of resilience in confronting uncomfortable truths about himself. Descent into Despair: Oedipus's lack of ability to address the revelations and his past leads him to a sense of melancholy and self-damaging behaviour, which includes blinding himself in a state of soreness, highlighting his loss of resilience in the face of overwhelming emotional turmoil. Oedipus blinds himself in a suit of affliction " Ah, the guilt, the fear— / They are too much to bear!"

People equate ‘seeing’ to gaining knowledge. Expressions such as “I see” and “seeing truth” are used to express understanding of something, but is seeing really the same as knowing? In Oedipus the King, Oedipus’s inability to grasp the truth is despite the fact that he is physically able to see contrasts Teiresias’s knowledge of the truth even though he is blind. The irony of the blind man being knowledgeable, and the seer becoming blind to the truth suggests that the idea that knowledge is not related to physical sight. In the beginning of the play, Oedipus is able to see but does not know the truth about who killed Laius. At the conclusion of the play, Oedipus is

The Blind Man Who could See Oedipus the king of Thebes is blinded from his true self by his own hubris. Not only does his pride blind him, but his metaphorical blindness eventually leads to his physical blindness as well. Oedipus starts of the play as the mighty king, who can do no wrong, accusing others of murder and treachery because he is paranoid that his fellow political figures are out for his crown. Sadly but inevitably we watch Oedipus metaphorically dig his own grave thinking it is for another man. Early on in the play Oedipus summons the seer Tiresias for guidance in healing his plagued land.

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

In Oedipus Rex Exodos the main character Oedipus blinds himself by impelling his eyes with his wife's brooch. He does so when he sees that Iokaste, his mother and wife , has hung herself. He can not face the cruel sight of her dead body informs of him and the realization that his horrible fate has become true. By blinding himself, he believes that he will rid himself from seeing the evils he has suffered and caused. Oedipus' act of blinding himself is an act of weakness, because he believes that by losing physical sight, he will also be freed from the burden of his evil doings when he possessed eyesight.

The paradoxical way in which blindness is used is best exemplified in Scene 1, when Oedipus

Oedipus intelligence could not see the truth, but the blind man, Teiresias, saw it plainly. Sophocles uses blindness as a theme in the play. Oedipus was uninformed and as a result blind to the truth about himself and his past. Yet, when Teiresias exposes the truth he is in denial. It is left to Oedipus to conquer his blindness, accept the truth, and realize fate. But instead Oedipus ridicules Terirsias blindness and accuses him of being on the side of Kreon and helping him become King. He accuses Teiresias for being paid to tell a fraudulent prophecy to him. Quickly Teiresias answers him back and tells him he is BLIND, and tells him about his past of who his actual mother and father was.

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

The whole idea of sight vs. blindness in Oedipus Rex points to the theme of fate and free will. For example, Tiresias points out that Oedipus “(has his) sight, and (does) not see,” referring to the fact that the king ignored his fate, instead, choosing to go out on his own (page 15). Oedipus is famously “blind” up until page 45, when he literally goes blind. Before he actually goes blind, the main character is “blind in (the) mind,” which means he is unable to see his fate that is right in front of him (page 14). By being blind to his own fate, Oedipus falls into the theme of illusion vs. reality. He lives in an illusion of perfection, being the king and married to a woman with whom he had four children (backstory). Reality hit Oedipus when it is made clear to him that he actually

     Oedipus, on the other hand, was not given such an easy decision. While gifted with an outward sense of sight, he lacked the knowledge of his own sinful actions - his hamartia, so to speak. Oedipus was seeing to others, but blind to himself. As he fled from Corinth, fearing a prophecy he received from an oracle, Oedipus showed complete blindness to the inevitability of his fate. The murder of his father, Laius, and the subsequent marriage to this mother, Jocasta, further elucidate the extent of Oedipus’ blindness; blind in deed, reason, and consequence. Tragically, Oedipus’ anagnorisis occurs simultaneously with his mother’s/wife’s suicide. With a heart full of despair and a pair of newly opened eyes, Oedipus makes his transformation complete as he exchanges his limited physical eyesight for the spiritual sight possessed by Teiresias. With this being done, Oedipus also seals his fate – he no longer can serve evil,

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

Oedipus Rex is a play about the way we blind ourselves to painful truths that we can’t bear to see. Physical sight and blindness are used throughout the play, often ironically, as a metaphor for mental sight and blindness. The play ends with the hero Oedipus literally blinding himself to avoid seeing the result of his terrible fate. But as the play demonstrates, Oedipus, the man who killed his father and impregnated his mother, has been blind all along, and is partly responsible for his own blindness.