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 him, I'll leave no means untried, to catch the one who did it with his hand" (Sophocles 1312). He sees so clearly in his mind that he will bring Laius justice in his death, but he fails to see that the man he killed in the midst of his voyage is the same man whose death he valiantly avenges.
             Tiresias, a blind man known as a god's prophet, points out Oedipus' blindness during an argument between the two men. Oedipus calls upon Tiresias to tell him anything possible about Laius' murder, and Tiresias is reluctant to do so because he knows that Oedipus is the killer. He cries, "I will never bring my grief to light – and I will not speak of yo
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