Ignorance In Oedipus The King

Nearly everything Oedipus says reveals his lack of knowledge. Oedipus says, “Whoever murdered him may also wish to punish me” (139-140). In this one phrase, Oedipus shows the audience that he does not know who killed the king, for he would not come to punish himself. He says he will search out the answers “as if for my own father” (329), when ironically that is precisely what he is doing. When talking about the fate of the searched-for murderer, Oedipus says it will not be cruel. However, the reader finds out later that he creates for himself what may be considered a more severe punishment- scarring his eyes. Perhaps the most ironic and two-fold example of irony is that Oedipus criticizes Tiresias for being physically blind. The man may not

Tragedies often trigger emotional responses to audiences. It allows an individual to perceive the situation and emotionally respond to it. Sophocles uses the relationships of individuals with one another that incorporate compromise and division between the clashes of stubborn heroism and defeat. In tragedies, one many often feel pity, which can be very relatable to the reader and audiences. This can be evident in “Oedipus the King.” Oedipus is human, regardless of his pride, his intelligence, or his stubbornness and we can recognize this in his reaction to his wrongdoings. With this, the audience is affected to feel both pity and fear. There is pity for this broken man and fear that his tragedy could be our own, as well.

Oedipus denies the truth and faces the consequences later on in the play. He gets furious when everyone is blaming him for killing Laius. As he is blaming others, hubris appears within his personality. Oedipus becomes blinder as hubris takes over him. If someone tells you a truth that you do not want to accept, gather evidence before blaming others and accept the truth whether it is hard or

He discovers he is he killer he has been searching for and has married the woman that has given birth to him. Caught up in pride and continuing down the path of bad judgement, Oedipus blinds himself because he cannot bear to look at himself nor does he desire to see what others are seeing in him. Oedipus has chosen to live out the rest of his days blind so he does have to face the harsh reality that he has caused hoping it will soon vanish from his memory. Although Oedipus didn’t intend to cause any harm, his actions brought suffering to himself and those around him. His character flaws an strengths of determination, pride , and error in judgement led to his dreadful discovery and resulted in him losing everything he once

In ancient Greek literature, diseases and afflictions often play key roles within the story. In Sophocles 's tragedy Oedipus Rex, the presence and recurrence of afflictions are central elements to the plot. Oedipus and his city both possess conditions that determine the outcome of the play. The motif of ailments, like the plague and blindness, highlight the hubris and failures of Oedipus to demonstrate his reliance on the gods.

In the stories Oedipus the King and Antigone, the kings who ruled Thebes are very troublesome men. Oedipus is the main character in Oedipus the King, whom is blinded by killing his father. In the end, he marries his mother and punishes himself for his sins. In the play, Antigone, Creon, the king after Oedipus, is blinded by his pride. He sentences Antigone to death for burying a body. In these two plays it shows how the sins of the fathers are being passed down, giving family members blindness and punishing them. The kings’ arrogance and pride causes them to be blind, resulting in the citizens and family members being affected by the kings’ behaviors.

The play displays Oedipus two encounters of blindness. The blindness of having the eyesight but cannot see and the blindness of poking his eyes so as not to see again the social evils that he had done (Calame, 1996). His metaphorical blindness came out of pride, ignorance and as a result of the people who knows the truth and hide it from him. The second bit of his blindness comes out of shame that makes him want to avoid seeing the cause of his actions.

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. First his denial of being the source of the plague. Second, his egotistical abilities that will form his plot to change his fate. And lastly, the consequences of his denial that will lead him to his physical and emotional destruction. It would seem that in this case, Oedipus’s fate is his own enemy.

One of the themes in Oedipus Rex is physical and metaphorical blindness. In Greek culture, those who were physically blind were said to have metaphorical "vision" and were messengers of the gods. For example, In the beginning, Oedipus is blind, not physically, but metaphorically because he does not know the

significant in establishing the catharsis that Greek tragedies provide for the audience. The playwrights use the catharsis to allude to the general theme that people cannot escape their fate, and using symbolism is an effective way to emphasize the theme. Sophocles, the Ancient Greek playwright of Oedipus Rex, uses the symbolism of blindness to develop the play’s theme and teach the audience a lesson about fate.

There are many characteristics of Greek tragedy; it always depicts the downfall of a good person who is called the protagonist. In the play ‘Oedipus the King’, Oedipus was the protagonist and soon met his demise at the end of the play by no one

Blindness is not only apply to people who are blind. We have people who have sight but are blind when it comes to the knowledge of the truth, including the truth hidden behind their whole life. This is the case for Oedipus. Oedipus, the main character of the play, is living in lies but he doesn 't even know until Theiresias, a blind man, reveals him the truth which due to is personal character refuses to accept until he becomes blind. This is from where the irony, blind but have sight, comes.

Henry Rollins once stated, “Weakness is what brings ignorance, cruelty, and pride, all these things that will keep a society chained to the ground, one foot nailed to the floor.” In Sophocles play Oedipus Rex, Oedipus, the king of Thebes, weakness is his fate. Throughout the play, Oedipus is trying to outrun his fate because he feels the gods are subordinate to his powerful figure. Oedipus is seen as a god throughout Thebes because he defeated the mighty Sphinx, who was once haunting over the city. After defeating the Sphinx, Oedipus took over as king by killing his father and coupling his mother as his hubris blinded him from reality. Sophocles uses dramatic irony to show the ignorance of Oedipus Rex as he cannot see the truth. Oedipus cannot see the truth because his hubris is encouraged by the people and himself. Oedipus’ ignorance is also clearly displayed after an effort to save his city. Although Oedipus is a fictional character created thousands of years ago, his actions can easily connect to many people in today 's society. The theme conveyed in Sophocles play Oedipus Rex is hubris often results in one 's ignorance.

Blindness is also a motif recited numerously during the story, from times before the story right down to the end, reflecting the wise and ignorance in the characters of Oedipus Rex. Sophocles, interestingly, seems to have grouped the characters of the play into two distinctive groups, the ones who can “see” and the ones who can’t “see”. This contrast of seeing and not seeing is becomes overt when the prophet Tiresias enters the stage. Tiresias is literally blind, but he can see clearly of not only Oedipus ' past, present, but also the horror in his future. Oedipus ' eyes works fine, but he 's completely blind of the ugly fate that gods have placed upon him. This blindness towards doom is made even more ironic by the fact that he was made king by his knowledge and insight. Oedipus was known as the person who solved the famous riddle of the Sphinx, a monster which terrorized the citizens. As the play proceed, we can see how much of a contrast between the two groups of character there is, even the messengers knows stuff that the king doesn’t. Sentences like “My son, it is clear that you don’t know what you are doing” (Sophocles 55) salutes to the ignorance of the supposedly “wise” king. Using words like “son”, Sophocles gives an sign that even the messenger It illustrates the flaws that exist in Oedipus, amplifies it by comparing him to other who are supposedly

Even people that have great vision and can have the physical capability to see, can still be blind to truth and complete understanding of it. Throughout the tragedy Oedipus the King, Sophocles ' repeatedly bring up the idea of sight and uses it as a metaphor for insight and knowledge. The protagonist of the play, Oedipus, is "blind" to the fact that the fate that he had tried so hard to avoid, had come true without him knowing of it, while the physically blind prophet Tiresias was the one who can actually "see" and understand the