Oedipus Rex Blindess
Blindness in Oedipus the KingPeople can be ""blinded"" to the truth. The answer to their question or solution to their problemmay have been obvious. Yet, they could not "see" the answer. They were blinded to the truth.Associations have been made between being blind and enlightened. A blind person is said tohave powers to see invisible things. They "see" into the future. The blind may not have physicalsight, but they have another kind of vision. In Sophocles' King Oedipus, Teiresias, the blindprophet, presents the truth to King Oedipus and Jocasta. Oedipus has been blinded to the truth hiswhole life. When he does find the truth, he loses his physical vision. Because of the truth,Oedipus blinds himself. Jocasta was blind to the true identity of Oedipus. Even when she foundout the truth, she refused to accept it. In this case, those who are blind ultimately do have aKind Oedipus started life with a prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother. Inan attempt to avoid this fate, his parents, Laius and Jocasta, sent him into the mountains to die.However, a shepherd saved Oedipus. This shepherd gave Oedipus to Polybus and Merope. When
Every Greek tragedy wassupposed to end with the main characters experiencing their own, personal tragedy. However, he is blind andignorant to the truth about himself and his past. He told Teiresias that the only reason hewas not blaming him for the whole situation was that Teiresias could not see. Set in the time of the Golden Period of Greece, Sophocles, knowing that hisaudience is aware of the outcome of the play, utilizes that foreknowledge to create varioussituations in which irony plays a key role. He desperately wants to know, to see, but hecannot. So, inresponse, Oedipus commits an act of would-be escapism: he blinds himself so that he may notsee. He had the blackness and the physicalpain he had inflicted on himself as reminders and as punishment. Teiresias told Oedipus that he had come intoThebes with his sight, but he would leave Thebes without it. It canbe broken down into two components: Oedipus's ability to "see" (ignorance or lack thereof), andhis willingness to "see". Teiresias' physical blindness led to Oedipus' physical blindness. Her way of dealingwith the whole deal was to kill herself. Oedipus, the main characterin Sophocles'' play Oedipus Rex, could not see the truth, but the blind man, Teiresias, "saw" itplainly. As Oedipus searched further and further, he discovered that hewas the polluter and that the prophecy had come true. Toward the end of the play, it is shown how Oedipus learns the true nature of things - his past isrevealed to him and he learns that the oracle was correct.
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Acceptance Essays
