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Oedipus The King: The Role Of Fools In Today's Society

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“Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.” The words of the great philosopher, Plato. In today’s society this seems to hold true. Society focuses more on the sake of saying something simply for the act of saying it not because they have something to say. In most accounts, today’s society consists of fools. This is not singular in today’s society, but shared across many generations over the span of recorded human existence. Fools societies’ range back even to the times of the Greeks, and Plato would likely agree that Athens was a society of fools and brought about the character of Euthyphro. Sophocles might also agree that Thebes was a society of fools, and a result of this was Oedipus becoming …show more content…

This blindness leads them to accept a king that very well could have committed regicide just days before. The next major example of blindness that can be found in Oedipus is the marriage of Oedipus and Jocasta, mother and son, the key reason that this is an example of blindness is Jocasta’s blindness to the binding of Oedipus in the beginning of the story. “Besides, before our child was three days old, Laius pinned his ankles tight together and ordered the men to throw him out on a mountain rock where no one ever goes” (Sophocles line 710).Oedipus has had his feet bolted together and this would leave fairly obvious physical markings. Jocasta should have been aware of these physical markings and yet she never made the connection between the marks of Oedipus’s ankles and the binding of her own son. This blindness allows Jocasta to marry and lay with her own child. Jocasta was also blind to the fact that Oedipus very well may have murdered Laius. Jocasta heard the oracle state “It said Laius was fated to be killed by a child of ours, one born to him and me.” (Sophocles Line 710). Jocasta should have been more wary of a stranger who arrived immediately after the murder of her husband. She was not however, and it lead to her marrying her own

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