Blindness can be both a physical handicap and an emotional problem that can lead to ones down fall. Oedipus the King focuses on the downfall of Oedipus due to his inability to see things as they stand. It is this blindness to the truth, which leads him off course and to his eventual demise. Oedipus finds his fate catches up with him, as it was proclaimed that he would one day kill his father and sleep with his mother. As the story goes, he unwittingly kills his father and marries his own mother. Blinded by his parent's attempts to escape fate, and his own denial, Oedipus embarks on a quest to find the true killer of the king, his father. .
The first demonstration of Oedipus' blindness to the truth comes when he denounces the murderer of the king. The murder in reality himself, Oedipus condemns himself. "If with my knowledge he lives at my hearth I pray that I myself may feel my curse. On you I lay my charge to fulfill all this for me, for the God, and for this land of ours destroyed and blighted, by the God forsaken." (Sophocles, line 250). This shows Oedipus' blindness in the sense of in his inability to see the truth. He has not yet discovered that he killed the king, thus he is blind to the truth. The mistake he makes is while he is unable to see the truth, is that he curses himself. This is one of many tragic mistakes that Oedipus makes while searching for the killer of the king. .
Oedipus makes it his objective to find the killer, as he seeks help from the prophet, Teiresias. The prophet knows the truth and he tries to reason with Oedipus that he should not seek the truth any longer. Yet, Oedipus appears blind to Teiresias' hints. "You blame my temper but you do not see your own that lives within you; it is me you chide." (Sophocles, 337). Still unaware that he is the killer, Oedipus is blind to what the prophet is telling him and continues to question him on the subject.
