Oedipus the King by Sophocles Essay example

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

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

Sophocles said that a man should never consider himself fortunate unless he can look back on his life and remember that life without pain. For Oedipus Rex, looking back is impossible to do without pain, a pain that stems from his prideful life. Oedipus is aware that he alone is responsible for his actions. He freely chooses to pursue and eventually accept his own life's destruction. Although fate victimizes Oedipus, he is a tragic figure since his own heroic qualities, his loyalty to Thebes, and his undying quest for the truth ruin him.

Throughout the tragedy by Sophocles, the king Oedipus relies on his personal glory to attain long lasting fame and balks when confronted with anything that might shatter this perception that he is the best. While both characters have done marvelous deeds in the past, their inherent arrogance, which is part of the tragic flaw of each of the characters,

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.

The theme of sight and blindness is undoubtedly important to notice while reading Oedipus the King. The number of times the words “see” or “blind” are in the play make it make it undeniably obvious that they are significant. The theme is developed throughout the dialogue, through characters such as Tiresias and Oedipus, and also directly in the irony of the play. It is important in a play about the truth because almost every character was “blind” to the truth. All of the characters, except one, can physically see, but mentally cannot see the truth.

Sophocles gives the readers many different views of the play Oedipus the King in which we can take and analysis accordingly to things we are most interested in. Throughout the play Oedipus personally changes. He starts off as a being a smart leader, calm, and determined, but at the end of the play it reveals how he is angry, irrational and is blind to certain aspects, which becomes his downfall.

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.

Oedipus is blind, not only in "mind," but also in "ears." He has proven himself to be a man who can listen carefully, but when he becomes angry he cannot hear anyone’s views but his own. His ability to reason, his second great virtue, falls victim to his

Language, or diction, is fourth on the list of a tragedy major points. Aristotle points out that metaphors are the most useful form of language in a tragedy. The main metaphor portrayed in “Oedipus Rex” is that of sight and blindness. The king things he sees all but in reality he is blind to the truth. Ironically the only one who can see the truth is the blind seer Teiresias. Oedipus begins the play able to see but is blind and ends the play blind but able to see.

Eyes, crossroads, and Oedipus’ ankles are symbols revealed to the reader throughout the story. Eyes are a very important symbol in the story, they indicate knowledge. In the story the character Tiresias is a wise, blind prophet that can ‘see’ the truth, while Oedipus can visually see but is ‘blind’ to the truth. Tiresias says to Oedipus, “So, you mock my blindness? Let me tell you this, with your precious eyes, you’re blind to the corruption of your life...”(468-471). The crossroads (which is the place Oedipus killed his father, King Laius) symbolizes Oedipus’ choices and paths he can take. The choices he makes seals his fate, “Making my way toward this triple crossroad… a man just as you described him… and the old man himself were about to thrust me off the road...the driver, I strike him in anger...with one blow of the staff… I knock him out… I killed them all-every mother’s son!”(884-894). Oedipus hot temperedness causes him to go down a painful, mortifying path, which caused his terrible fate to occur. The name Oedipus means swollen ankles, which was given to him because of his childhood ankle injury. It became a symbol of Oedipus' ignorance and a scar of his destined fate.

“Oedipus the King” is a tragic story written by Sophocles. Oedipus is a king that is trying to escape his fate. An oracle had predicted that he was going to be the killer of his father, and was going to sleep with his mother. When he was first born, his parents attempted to kill him yet he survived and was adopted. Instead of getting away from the atrocious future that was predicted, Oedipus walks right into his fate. This Greek tragedy is about transitions. He starts off as arrogant, unknowing, and full of ego but this drastically changes as we reach the end of the play. Oedipus becomes a wise man and has accepted how life is. No matter how much power or knowledge you have there is no way of tampering with fate, instead accept and learn from it.

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

The tale of Oedipus and his prophecy has intrigued not only the citizens of Greece in the ancient times, but also people all over the world for several generations. Most notable about the play was its peculiar structure, causing the audience to think analytically about the outcomes of Oedipus’ actions and how it compares with Aristotle’s beliefs. Another way that the people have examined the drama is by looking at the paradoxes (such as the confrontation of Tiresias and Oedipus), symbols (such as the Sphinx), and morals that has affected their perceptions by the end of the play. Nonetheless, the most important aspect is how relevant the story is and how it has influenced modern ideas like that of Freud and other people of today.