Oedipus the King Blindness Essay

Who is blind and who sees is a conspicuous idea developed in Sophocles’ play Oedipus the King when Oedipus meets his unexpected demise as he discovers his birth mother is also the mother of his own children. The once determined, yet ignorant king eventually gains knowledge about his past decisions and his life takes a sudden turn. Despite oracle Tiresias’ blindness, he is still able to see better than Oedipus does, teaching individuals rash behaviors committed in ignorance will return to haunt

things beyond the surface. The theme of sight versus blindness in the tragic play “Oedipus the king” by Sophocles is a metaphor, with blindness symbolising knowledge, light and truth while sight symbolises ignorance, darkness and lie. This metaphor and irony of sight and blindness is the building block of the play “Oedipus the king”, with central figures Oedipus, King of Thebes and Teiresias the blind prophet. References to sight and blindness, both metaphorical and literal are frequent throughout

Sophocles: Oedipus the King As human beings, we often become more concerned in the material world, becoming oblivious to and unable to see the truths. In Sophocles play, Oedipus the King, one of the themes used is of sight and blindness which is closely related to darkness and light. Teiresias, an old blind prophet, tells Oedipus and Jocasta the truth of this tragedy. Oedipus was blinded his whole life from the truth. When he finally realizes the truth he loses his physical vision by blinding himself

In the story Oedipus Rex By Sophocles, The protagonist, the king of Thebes discovers his horrible fate. Oedipus is confronted by the people of Thebes to find out how a plague has begun and how to stop it. The only lead they have on the plague is about the murder of their old king, Laius. Which in the end leads to deranged consequences. Oedipus changes between literal and figurative blindness throughout the story. At the beginning of the story, Oedipus can physically see but is ignorant to the truth

From the earliest starting point of Oedipus, one can see that the fundamental character of Oedipus is certain about his identity and where he has originated from. The most critical theme of the story is figurative blindness, and how Oedipus asserts that other people around him is blind, and he is the one and only that can see. Oedipus soon discovers that he has no of his identity, and that from the start he has been blind himself. Sophocles makes Oedipus endure as a result of the way that he really

In Oedipus the King, Oedipus who starts as the mighty king of Thebes is trying to find the truth behind the plague and why the gods are punishing his people. Oedipus then spends the rest of the play discovering the truth. In this play, the theme of sight and blindness plays along with Oedipus trying to find out the truth of what is going on. The theme of sight and blindness is both betrayed as physical, like the blind prophet and Oedipus blinding himself, and as a metaphor for searching for the truth

disability is seen as a limitation and an impairment. Oedipus’s figurative blindness is indeed an impairment that shrouds him from piecing the truths of the prophecy together. It cast him into the world of the unknown in which he had no authority over his life. He was in the palm of the gods’ hands, walking in line with the destiny fated to him. But at the realization of the truth, he is unclouded from the figurative blindness. The act of deliberately blinding himself allows him to transcend the worldliness

of sight and blindness in Oedipus the King contributes to the development of one of the drama’s main themes: truth is a matter of perception. In the novel, Oedipus believes he knows the truth about himself because of what he physically can see. However, what he sees makes him more ignorant to the truth. Oedipus grew up believing that his family in Corinth was his biological family because he was never told that he was adopted. This is one of the first instances it is clear that Oedipus is “blind”

The Irony of Sight and Knowledge in Oedipus the King 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

first play in the Oedipus Cycle by Sophocles is filled with several topics for enrichment and reflection. Some of the most prevalent of these would be blindness versus sight, truth and knowledge, and ignorance. Though the idea may not be original, nor did its use cease after Sophocles’ time, these topics are intertwined. It can be argued that in Oedipus Rex blindness stands for ignorance and sight stands for truth and knowledge. The topic of blindness comes up regularly in Oedipus Rex, even when