Odepus
"An idea is an eye given by God for the seeing of God. Some of these eyes we can not bear to look out of, we blind them as quickly as possible." (Russell Hoban, American novelist) Sometimes the reality of a situation is so harsh that, instead of facing it, people blind themselves to it. In Oedipus Rex, the theme of sightlessness is prevalent throughout the play. Sophocles uses ambiguity to keep from creating biases toward the characters so that, in a sense the audience, as well as the characters, are blind. Fate and blindness go hand in hand in the play. The main character, Oedipus, is a severe victim of fate, ".... damned in his birth, in his marriage damned, damned in the blood he shed with his own hand." The hero Oedipus is tormented by the punishment of a crime that he did not commit. At birth, it was said that he would "…lie with [his] mother, breed children from whom all men would turn their eyes; and that [he] should be [his] father’s murderer." This fate is undeserved and makes one question the reasoning behind the fate. The gods seem heartless and cold in their treatment to an innocent man. The aspect of sightlessness is first mentioned in the discussion between a soothsayer and Oedipus to find out the ju
As he was traveling from Corinth, Oedipus encounters his real father, Laios, king of Thebes. Of course Oedipus is already out of sorts because of his departure from his homeland, and the King angers Oedipus and a fight begins and Oedipus, "...knocked him out of his car and he rolled on the ground. [He] killed him." Blind to the fact that he has killed his own father and thus fulfilled the first part of the prophecy, he continues on and does not worry about the man he has killed. He eventually reaches his place of birth and saves the kingdom from the riddling sphinx. This feat earns him the title of king and the marriage of the queen, his mother. To all this, Oedipus is ignorant to the fact that his own words, "...If I was born to this fate, who could deny the savagery of God." Everything he ran from to escape his fate only brought it closer. His country now lay in suffering because of the hypocritical curse of the gods, "...the herds are sick; children die unborn, and labor is in vain." Why do the gods punish a city for a crime that only they had caused. Had the gods mentioned this fate, or only killed the cursed child, the lives of the people and the power of the kingdom would have remained strong. Oedipus meets with a blind soothsayer to discuss the reasons for the country's drought and suffering. It is ironic that the only person who can see the truth is the blind man. In the meeting, Teiresias is reluctant to tell what he knows to the king because the man he is looking for is none other than himself. After being thoroughly tormented by Oedipus, the soothe sayer says to him, "I say that you, with both your eyes, are blind: You cannot see the wretchedness of your life." Instead of heeding Teiresias' words, Oedipus becomes infuriated at him. He refuses to ev
Some topics in this essay:
Corinth Oedipus,
Oedipus Rex,
Hoban American,
,
kill father,
child messenger,
parents corinth,
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Approximate Word count = 1205
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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