Blindness vs. Sight
Oedipus the King was written by Sophocles, and performed for the first time between 430 and 425 B.C. The play unfolds the tale of a king's battle for justice and knowledge in seeking the killer of his father, the previous king; Oedipus is unaware that he is the murderer, and has thus fulfilled his prophecy. Throughout the play, there are references to Oedipus' blindness to the truth; it is this blindness, not his fate, which fulfills the prophecy dictated to both Oedipus and his parents, King Laius and Queen Jocasta, saying that Oedipus would kill his father and marry his mother. The blindness is emphasized figuratively with the concerned townspeople and Tiresias, and literally with Jocasta's death. In the beginning of the play, Oedipus declares that Laius' killer will be either exiled or killed; he says that justice must be served to keep the gods happy and to banish a murderer from their midst. He does not realize that he is stating his own sentence. He is blind to the fact that he killed King Laius; he fulfilled the prophecy given to him that he would kill his father, but he does not realize it, and now he is determining his punishment. He even says that "as if for my own father, I'll fight for
There are times, like with Tiresias and the townspeople, when he has sight but can't see the truth, and there are times, like the end, when he can see the truth but has no physical sight. "Your eyes can't see the evil to which you've come, nor where you live, nor who is !in your house. ------------------------------------------------------------------------**Bibliography** Works CitedSophocles. Oedipus can now see all the horror which he has caused and is blind to nothing. Jocasta commits suicide, and upon finding her, Oedipus immediately sticks pins in his eyes to physically blind himself; he does this so that his eyes would "no longer see the evils he had suffered or had done, see in the dark those he should not have seen, and know no more those he once sought to know" (1336). As a result of his blindness, whether to his true origins, his involvement in the murder, or the pain caused, he drives himself into the ground and lays out his destiny before him. Tiresias goes on to say that Oedipus lives unknowingly with those close to him in shame and that he does not see the evil. Tiresias, a blind man known as a god's prophet, points out Oedipus' blindness during an argument between the two men. Do you know your parents? Now knowing, you are their enemy, in the underworld and here" (1315). He is blind to what he has done and to whom, blind to who he really is. Here, Tiresias is telling Oedipus the truth in a roundabout way, but Oedipus is too angry to understand what the prophet is saying; he is blind to everything around him that does not fit his expectations. By the end, the blindness causes him much horror and suffering.
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