Theme Of Sight And Blindness In Oedipus

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 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

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.

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 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.

Another revealing example of irony intertwining with sight deals with Polyneices. Antigone pleads, begs Polyneices to relent of his hatred of Thebes and call off the war that will destroy so many men, but Polyneices refuses. Antigone cries, “Sweet brother! You go with open eyes to death!” (154)  This is a powerful condemnation, for Polyneices lacks vision in the sense that he cannot discern what is proper.  The Greeks must have considered the act of seeing an the interplay of the mental, spiritual and the physical. Divine sight reveals another aspect of the conceptions of Sophocles and the Greeks.  The gods were thought to have perfect sight.  The analysis of divine sight, the type of vision Sophocles considered admirable, should shed light on his intentions.  The eyes of the gods are unlike those of men; they deal primarily with the spiritual.  “Think: their

One of the many symbols Sophocles portrays throughout the play is sight and blindness. Sight represents how Oedipus had eyesight, but was still “blind” to the truth of himself throughout most of the play. He was both hesitant and unaware of the events that built up to

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 play Oedipus the King, by Sophocles, a man named Oedipus is trying to figure out what is causing a plague in the city. Throughout the play, many people are trying to give him clues that he is the cause for marrying his mother. Realizing this, Oedipus stabs out his eyeballs and leaves the city. In the play Antigone, by Sophocles, Antigone buried Polyneices, and Creon wants to have her killed because of it. Tiresias, the blind prophet, tries to persuade Creon that the gods actually want Polyneices buried. Creon then wants to release Antigone, but she had already hung herself. The rest of the family then commits suicide. In the end of both plays, Creon and Oedipus both suffer due to blindness vs. sight.

Ignorance may be bliss, but people cannot choose to unlearn a piece of knowledge. Throughout Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, many references are made to who is blind and who can see. Oedipus himself suffers through being ‘blind’ in the sense of always being the last one to accept his fate. He is in a state of ignorance throughout most of the tragedy, which leads to his demise. Accordingly, in the greek tragedy Oedipus the King, Sophocles informs the readers that those who cannot see are gifted with sight in some instances, and those who see possess a burden that cannot be carried by just anyone.

Ignorance can blind an individual from the truth. Plays were of great importance in early Greek culture. Plays were the main source of entertainment, and one of the most exceptional examples is Oedipus the King written by Sophocles. The drama is tremendously uplifted by the character development and the excellent structure Sophocles has put forward. Interactions between characters and each character’s motivations generate brilliant themes throughout the play. Sophocles uses a technique called recognition, which illustrates a character’s turn from ignorance to the truth. The play is about the city of Thebes which is racked by a plague and a crisis that is quickly wiping humans from the earth. The great king of Thebes is Oedipus who must dispose of the problem very quickly. He welcomes information from the god Apollo, who says Oedipus must punish the killer of the former king, Laius. In one of the instances where Oedipus tries to find the killer, he encounters Tiresias, who is a physically blind man but can see everything because he is a prophet of Apollo. Tiresias possesses the information but declines to cooperate with Oedipus. After a series of verbal insults, the audience is left in awe when Tiresias puts the blame on Oedipus. Similarly to Oedipus the King, dialogue “Allegory of the Cave” written by Plato also in the early Greek times, shows that ignorance can lead an individual to be blind from the truth. Sophocles magnificently develops a question of “Who sees and who is blind”. Also in Oedipus the King, Sophocles exhibits how selflessness and ignorance can blind a person from the truth, but eventually has to go through recognition which can cause great agony.

The most crucial point in the play “Oedipus the king” was the fact that Oedipus was completely unaware that he killed his own father. He had a mission to find out who was his father’s killer. Effectively the more Oedipus was motivated and with his excessive confidence in knowing the truth of who killed his father, the play began to unravel and starts to fit together like the pieces of a puzzle that Oedipus was known for figuring out. The more he pushed in finding who his father killer was the more he was towards his reality of terror. The place where three roads meet was the place where Laius was killed and the place where Oedipus, himself had killed a man. He thought his father was a man named Polypus, the king of Corinth yet a man had shouted out at a banquet that he was not his father’s son. He was given a apprehension of “a future great with pain, terror, disaster…You are fated to couple with your mother, you will bring a breed of children