Assignment #10 - Oedipus

Not always in life the blindness or darkness is a literal state. In Sophocles play “ Oedipus the King” while Tiresias may be literally blind, he “sees” the truth and delivers it to others in the form of prophecy. Oedipus is not physically blind, but, as it is said in the story, Oedipus with his “precious eyes” is “blind” to the “corruption of [his] life”, meaning he does not pay attention to what should be obvious details. This is full of irony by the fact that he was made famous for by solving the riddle of the Sphinx. Here the prophecy is misunderstood not once, but twice: first by Oedipus father and then by Oedipus himself. Oedipus's father, upon hearing the prophecy, orders Oedipus murdered. Since he was a baby when he was to be murdered and delivered to the parents who raised him, Oedipus after hearing about the prophecy was completely “in the dark”, and since his adoptive parents didn't tell him they weren't his biological parents, he assumed they would be those who he would kill. Without the information withheld from him, he could not make an informed decision and, instead, made the wrong choices. Ignorant Oedipus attempts to make the correct decisions based off of the information he collects, but without all the information before acting, makes decisions that lead to him fulfilling the prophecy. He could have chosen to stay with his adoptive parents and watch for the signs of prophecy and correct them as they arose. Instead, being ignorant, he chose to leave which led him to murder his biological father and be married to his mother as the prophecy dictated. When Oedipus finally sees the terrible truth of his life, he stab out his own eyes. He is doing it because he no longer can’t stand what he created. By doing this he becomes form metaphorically to literally blind person.