Sight Vs. Blindness In Sophocles Oedipus The King

He finds out that his mother is his wife and that he killed his father, The former king. Finding all of this out, Oedipus becomes his own prosecutor, and then his own judge and punisher. This story suggests that knowledge is vain and constrained in its capacity to convey happiness to the individuals who look for it. Sophocles certainly wasn’t timid about the symbol sight vs. blindness; words like

Blindness Vs. Sight In the plays Oedipus the King and Antigone by Sophocles, the city of Thebes deals with two kings, who cause great pain to the city. In the play Oedipus the King, Oedipus is the very tempered king of Thebes, in which this city has a plague. Little does Oedipus know after blaming everyone else, he is the real cause of the disaster.

Oedipus became blind by trying to escape his fate, as well as the pride and arrogance he had developed. In the text the author states, “And if this killer lives within my house, and if I know him, then may I myself receive the curse I just now laid upon his head” (43).

Oedipus and His Pride Pride, one of the seven deadly sins, is all forms of media. In literature, one of the best example of pride is in the story Oedipus the King. Oedipus is the cursed King of Thebes who was destined to kill his father and marry his mother, but his pride made him believe that he was going to be fine when he left his adoptive mother and father in Corinth. Eventually, as it always does, pride caught up to him.

It's great ignorance to have physical sight when you are ultimately blinded by the truth that you cannot see as in the case of Oedipus. The king makes ironical statement to Teiresias of how he cannot be hurt by Teiresias (Calame, 1996). This later turn to Oedipus equating physical blinded to ignorance as he removes his eyes so as not to see his terrible actions. The play displays Oedipus two encounters of blindness.

Throughout the play Oedipus the King by Sophocles, there is continual use of vision and blindness foreshadowing the events to come near the end of the play due to Oedipus’ ignorance. Ironically, most of the main characters with their sight still intact are blind to the truth and revelations that come to pass while the few that are blind see what is to come and what becomes of those spoken of in the prophecy. In a paradoxical trend, sight in the play can equal deception or ignorance while blindness represents truth or revelation. Oedipus is a brash man.

To release himself of his prideful ways, Oedipus took it upon himself to discard the eyes that failed to see the truth. To amend the situation he, “raised [the ornament] down straight into his eyeballs.” University of Pennsylvania Professor, Peter T. Struck, established a literary commentary in which he wrote, “by blinding himself, as opposed to committing suicide, Oedipus achieves a kind of surrogate death that intensifies his suffering.” Struck agrees that by committing this self-inflicted retribution, Oedipus is redeeming himself for his sins in a way that death would not allow him to do. Now that Oedipus is finally able to see the truth, he recognizes his mistakes and exclaims, “I don’t deserve to live among you…send me from Thebes”(p.80).

Master of Tragedies Neil Gaiman once said, “There’s none so blind as those who will not listen.” This quote relates to the theme of sight and blindness in “The Tragedy of Oedipus Rex”. King Oedipus was a man who would not accept the truth about himself. Physically he was not blind but in truth he was. There are three examples of Oedipus’s metaphysical condition of blindness which will be listed as follows.

Oedipus experienced blindness figuratively and eventually literally. The concept of sight and blindness in Oedipus Rex teaches many lessons. One lesson is that seeing something is based on one’s perspective, therefore it will not always be experienced the same way among different people. It depends on the way people perceive the information they receive.

Everyone tries to convince themselves that it is all lies when you receive bad news about anything that you don’t believe in. In the play Oedipus the King, written by Sophocles in 430 BC, Oedipus is in denial about who killed the previous king, Laius. The town has asked Oedipus to save them from the disease that has spread killing all the life in town by finding the person who killed Lauis. Oedipus tells the people he will find the culprit and do whatever he needs to do to punish them. When he is given the truth, he is unwilling to accept the truth.

It means that the curse affected him and caused his blindness, from what he is already knew since he was born. Consequently, his reactions also were affected. That’s true, but at the end of the story, Oedipus blinded himself as a punishment and took responsible for his undoing and committed it saying “the hand that stuck my eyes was mine, mistake no one else I did it all my self” . A question to think about is why would Oedipus blame and punish himself, even though he recognized his misfortune and that he is predestined from Gods. Of course he is responsible for that irrationality.

Not just physical blindness, but intellectual blindness as well. The issue of blindness is utilized as an effective contrasting technique for Oedipus at different points in the play. Simply talking about blindness, however, is a little ambiguous. It can be broken down into two components: Oedipus 's ability to "see" (ignorance or lack thereof), and his willingness to "see". The word "see" can be used in both contexts here.

The consequence of Oedipus’s imperfect noble nature was his eventual blindness and exile from the place he loved and cared for the

Oedipus was a tragic hero he was seen as a great man and was king,but he fell to misfortune because of his disability to see past his pride and anger which led to his demise. By not being able to see past his pride and anger Oedipus was not able to to avoid his prophetic destiny. He was blinded by his pride and anger so much that it became his tragic flaw ultimately leading him to his

So in the end, Oedipus no longer thinks of himself. Thinking of his children 's impending marriage, Oedipus begs for his children and no longer can think of himself as anything more than a creature that embodies what it means to be pathetic: “When you come to the age ripe for marriage, who will he be who will run the risk, children, to take for himself the reproaches that will be banes for my parents and offspring alike? What evil is absent? Your father slew his father; he ploughed his mother, where he himself was sown, and he sired you in the same fount where he himself was sired.