Blindness In Oedipus The King Essay

Oedipus The play Oedipus the King by Sophocles Antigone displays the symbolic representation of blindness throughout the play as the ignorance of Oedipus foreshadows external blindness as his fate. His actions lead him into carrying out a self-fulfilling prophecy. By remaining unaware and ignorant to the various situations and coincidences that mark his destiny, Oedipus became blind to the truth which ultimately brings forth his literal blindness. Teiresias who Oedipus sent to Apollo, reluctantly tells him that Oedipus is the one that killed Laius. Oedipus does not listen to him and accuses him of being in cahoots with Creon to get rid of Oedipus. "I will reply, since you reproach me as blind: You, even though you see clearly, do not see the scope of your evil, nor where you live, nor with whom you dwell" (Sophocles …show more content…
This argument between Oedipus and Teiresias about who killed Laius led Oedipus to make a promise to punish the murderer, foreshadowing how Oedipus punishes himself and keeps the promise. Teiresias displays an ironic attitude and symbolizes the whole conundrum of the play, by slowly revealing the prophecy. Later on, in the play, when Oedipus has an conversation with Jocasta, he comes to a realization that he has done the dirty sin that is written in his fate. When the news spreads of Jocasta being married to her biological son, she can not live with the shame, and makes a decision to end her life. Oedipus sees the sight of his mother's death and says that no one will no longer see the pain he has caused, "You, you'll see no more the pain I suffered, all the pain I caused! Too long you looked on the ones you never should have seen, blind to the ones you longed to see, to know! Blind from this