Theme Of Light And Dark Imagery 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.

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

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,

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.

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.

"Overview: Oedipus Rex." Drama for Students. Ed. David M. Galens and Lynn M. Spampinato. Vol. 1.

In the Poetics, Aristotle provides an outline of how the artist is to portray or represent the perfect Tragedy. A Tragedy, of course, was nothing more than a drama, in which the characters appeared "better" than in real life (in a comedy, they appeared "worse," according to Aristotle). Aristotle's Poetics makes several references to other dramatic works to illustrate his points, but he most commonly calls upon The Odyssey to support his argument for how a dramatic structure should be designed. However, along with the Odyssey, Aristotle extensively references Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. Both poetic works were enormously popular in their time (the former had been passed down orally for generations, and the latter won the top prizes at the dramatic festivals). Therefore, Aristotle is comfortable using both to support his viewpoint concerning Tragedy and the Tragic Hero. This paper will analyze the standards that Aristotle sets out concerning the definition of the Tragic Hero and show how Sophocles' Oedipus exemplifies Aristotle's definition of a Tragic Hero.

Over two thousand years ago in 400 B.C. Sophocles, a Greek dreamer, wrote the story, “Oedipus the King”. One might think that a story that old may be boring or poorly written, but in fact it is very descriptive and entertaining. Sophocles even employs different literary devices to enhance the themes throughout the story. Some of these techniques includes: metaphor, personification, imagery, symbolism, tone, meter, setting, and diction.

exercising his free choice by making bad decisions . Oedipus certainly meets these portrayals of a tragic hero. The dialect of tragedy consists of two circles: one is a relative point and the other is impacted and the effect on its audience. Sophocles and Aristotle’s achieve that task with absolute clearness. The modern reader, coming to the classic drama not entirely to the enjoyment, will not always surrender himself to the emotional effect. He is apt to worry about Greek ‘fatalism’ and the justice of the downfall of Oedipus, and, finding no satisfactory solution for these intellectual difficulties, loses half the pleasure that the drama was intended to produce . In dramatizing stories, there will dependably blends of passionate sentiments, suspense, and fervor to discover what’s

The famed tragedian Sophocles is known for his unique ideas and intellect. Sophocles carefully utilizes of all of his intelligence and creative ability in order to make use of illuminating moments throughout the play which allow his audience to draw conclusions about free will, fate, knowledge, and power throughout perhaps his most iconic play, Oedipus Rex. the main character Oedipus experiences an illuminating moment when he gouges his eyes out at the discovery of the truth about his actions. This illumination is expressed in order to express Sophocles’ idea that fate overpowers free will.

Reading through three related stories, we discover different motifs denoting author’s thought in different time.Without any doubt, the tragic essence goes through the Three Theban Plays. As Sophocles meditates the philosophy of the tragedy all along his life, the tragic essence expands from individuals in a society. The conflict in each play becomes increasingly complicated. In Antigone, we can clearly distinguish the conflict between Antigone and Creon, family and politics. However, in Oedipus at Colonus, the play merges all the conflicts happened to former plays and enhances the theme of the story. The later part of this trilogy, especially the ending of Oedipus the King and Oedipus at Colonus, reveals a darker and deeper phenomenon of Thebes and projects it to Oedipus. The prophet plays important role of forming the story line and tragic image of Oedipus, but the root causing the series of tragedy of the characters is not gods’ command. It is degeneration of people, which is pathetic to humanity. Finally, after suffering from family complex and exile, Oedipus is not only a victim of the society, but also the reflection of the twisted humanity of Thebes.

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.

In the play Oedipus The King written by Sophocles, it is the blind man who can see the truth of Oedipus and Jocasta’s relationship and it is those that see, Oedipus and Jocasta, who are blind to the truth. When Oedipus finally sees the truth of his actions, he blinds himself in horror. The irony here is that only the blind see things clearly, while the seeing blind themselves to the reality in front of them. While believing himself to be living in the light, Oedipus is actually living in darkness. The story of Oedipus begins as a murder mystery in a village that is suffering from a plague that is threatening to destroy the village. The author continues to use prophets and messengers as well as irony to follow the main character. Sophocles uses the motif of blindness and sight, the contrasting imagery of darkness and light, along with dramatic irony to bring a huge impact to the meaning of the story. A motif is a symbol which can take on a figurative meaning. In this case the author uses blindness and sight as the motif. Imagery is used as a descriptive language. In this story the author uses light and dark as imagery. Dramatic irony is an irony that happened when the meaning of a situation is understood by the audience but not by the characters. An example of dramatic irony is shown when the old soothsayer visits the King. Oedipus did not listen to the man because he's blind, and Teiresias is full of anger tells the Oedipus that though he might be able to see he is "blind" to the truth. When Oedipus finally becomes blind at the end of the play, Oedipus realizes the truth of the soothsayer’s words. Irony is also showing that the only person that can see the truth is the blind man.

In the Greek tragedy, we see that Jocasta state that it is natural for human being to dream about sleeping with their mothers. She is right in the sense that we gain a sort of attraction and love for our parents. These natural feelings has come to be known as either the Oedipus or Electra complexes. There is a common command against incest that is both needed and jus due to the fact that it is morally wrong and disgusting. The command against incest is needed because it keeps citizens and most of all the kingdom morally in check. For someone to take their mother or father to bed and wed them is viewed in most societies as disgusting and unjust. This is portrayed in the play with the curse on the kingdom and Oedipus having no knowledge of his incestuios actions, however Jocosta knew what was going and viewed the situation as inevitable due to the wrath of the gods.