Certainly blindness and sight" illuminate metaphors throughout Sophocles' masterpiece work Oedipus Rex. Ironically, the blind prophet Teiresias becomes such an exasperation to Oedipus, "I did not know you were about to speak folly; else it would have been long ... written just after the first Peloponnesian War (with Sparta) and soon after the plague that carried off 1/3 of all Athens' inhabitants and their beloved Pericles (who was a close friend of Sophocles). As all who were in the audience of this play were intimately aware of the Sparta's siege of Athens, the plague catastrophe, and Athe...

• Word Count: 653
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... . They envisioned Greece being the center of all beauty and inspiration, with monuments of no comparison. Having these edifices constructed, Pericles, the leader of the democratic faction and a friend of Sophocles, dreamt of Athens as the leader of a panhellenic confederacy, as an ideal democracy, and above all as a city with magnificent edifices, temples, public buildings and theatres, (Durant). These buildings were ... ...

• Word Count: 2470
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... truth and knowledge. This contrasts with Oedipus at the beginning of the play, but nevertheless foreshadows Oedipus's own future, with the anargnorsis causing him to blind himself. Using irony allows Sophocles to tantalize the audience into wanting to see how the events occurring mentally affect Oedipus regardless of whether they are already aware of the story. Irony is seen continuously in ... ...

• Word Count: 1270
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: Undergraduate