Light And Darkness In Sophocles Oedipus The King

Tragic playwright, Sophocles, in his play, Oedipus the King, relates the tale of the downfall of the King of Thebes, Oedipus. Sophocles’ purpose is to show his audience the eventual product of hubris. He adopts a sympathetic tone in order to convey to his audience that, although it seems unfair, it is of no matter how many virtues one possesses if one is arrogant and defies the gods. Sophocles utilizes the ongoing theme of light and darkness to enlighten moral issues and create a sense of irony and foreboding.

Sophocles draws direct parallels between truth and light and deception and darkness for the purpose of expressing to his audience a moral idea. The clearest illustration of this in terms of singular incidences is the confrontation between Oedipus and Creon over the issue of Creon’s alleged plot with Tiresias. Oedipus aggressively asks Creon if “Your treachery, you think I’d never detect it creeping against me in the dark?” (lines 601-602). Sophocles relegates treason to darkness and illustrates to his audience his opinion on dishonesty with his word choices. Not only does he equate treachery to darkness, he paints dishonesty as a cowardly creature slinking around under the

Hubris and the human arrogance in their defiance of destiny are major themes throughout the play and tying them together with the light as truth, darkness as deceit association adds depth to the issue and better allows the audience to understand both points of view on the issue. The light versus darkness theme also add drama to the irony of the entire premise of the play by adding the truth and light association to Oedipus’ search for the truth to the entire situation. Overall, the theme of light versus darkness adds depth to the narrative and helps to add subtle meanings and layers to the message of the