Sophocles's play Oedipus the King, tells the story of a man who tries to escape his fate but.
The story takes place during a time period when people listened to the Greek gods and their prophecies. Both Oedipus and Jocasta hear terrible things from a prophecy so they do everything in their power to avoid it, the irony being that they believe for the longest time that they had actually done so. Throughout the entire play Oedipus was on a quest to find someone who turned out to be himself, but it took him a long time to figure it out because he had spend so much time trying to deny the truth about things. The use of motifs such as light versus dark and sight versus blindness show that those who can truly see are blind while teaching the moral lesson that ones fate cannot be avoided.
In the modern time period, people say things like I see as a reference to knowledge and understanding. There are many references to sight throughout this play, these references being used to show the level of understanding Oedipus has, or thinks he has, about the truth. While arguing with Tiresias, Oedipus says that he can now see it all (1140), meaning he that understood what happened to Laius and why his city is experiencing the plague. While Oedipus thinks that he knows what is happening, he actually has no knowledge of the truth and the audience knows this, making it an example dramatic irony. The irony continues later in the play when Oedipus again says, I see it all (1145) as a way to explain that he knows and understands what is happening, or so he believes. Tiresias, a blind prophet, states How terrible - to see the truth when the truth is only pain to him who sees (1139). By saying this, Tiresias is explaining that Oedipus believes that he knows all the truths about his life, but this is not true. If Oedipus were to see, or obtain knowledge, of the truth about his life, he would be filled with pain.
