Sight And Blindess Of Oedipus The King

Oedipus the King by Sophocles was a play written after a devastating plague struck the city of Athens in 430 B.C. The play is about how knowledge can lead to devastation and destruction based on how the characters find out the truth of the Delphic Oracle. Years before Oedipus became the king of Thebes, the previous king, Laius, had received a prophecy that his son would grow up to kill his father. With this information he gave his baby son to a sheperd to dispose of him. Years later Laius is murdered and the Sphinx emerges and locks down the city by refusing to let anybody enter or leave the city unless they can solve her riddle. The city is essentially under siege. But nobody knows the answer to her riddle. "What goes on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three at night?" Everybody who tries to answer the riddle is killed by the Sphinx until one day a stranger comes upon the city. The Sphinx asks him the riddle and he simply replies, "Man." The stranger solves the riddle and the Sphinx throws herself to her death. The city opens up to him, he marries the widowed queen, becomes king of Thebes, and unwillingly begins to fulfill most of the prophecy.

What is the meaning of sight and blindness for an understanding of Oedipus the King?

But the reason Oedipus, who is the prince of Corinth, has come to Thebes, is to escape an oracle of his own. Before coming to Thebes he went to seek the Delphic Oracle to ask if Polybus and Merope were his natural parents.

The Delphic Oracle replied:

"You are fated to couple with your mother, you will bring

a breed of children into the light that no man can bear to see — you will kill your father, the one who gave you life!"

With that information, Oedipus fled Corinth to run away ...

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...im. Oedipus just continually wanted to have more knowledge and asks more questions to gain wisdom and it eventually becomes his downfall. Knowing the future may destroy a man; and it ruins the lives of two men in this story.

Oedipus was blind to see the truth; he was also blinded by the prophecies. He ran away from home, killed his father, married his mother and has children with her. "But Oedipus' play does not end with these lyrics; he gradually gains a new strength and new understanding" (Segal 133). And the true meaning of this story is, ignorance is bliss.

Works Cited

Knox, Bernard M.W. Oedipus at Thebes. New Haven: Yale UP. 1957.

Rpt. In Oedipus Tyranmus. Ed. Lucy Berkowizs and Thedore F. Brunner. New York: Norton, 1970. 148-165

Segal, Charles. Oedipus Tyranmus: Tragic Heroism and the Limits of Knowledge. 2nd. Ed. New Yourk: Oxford UP, 2001.