Examples Of Blindness In Oedipus The King

Samuel Butler wrote, "A blind man knows he cannot see and is glad to be led, though it is a dog; but he that is blind in his understanding, which is the worst blindness of all, believes he sees as the best and scorns a guide." Blindness appears to all people even if they possess the ability to "see". People tend to avoid realizing the truth or completely understanding a situation. In Oedipus the King, Sophocles uses blindness as a motif by making Oedipus blind through his refusal to see the prophecy has come true, while Teiresias' physical blindness allows him to realize or “see” the truth. Oedipus begins his life with the prophecy that he will kill his father in order to marry his mother, he will later go on to have kids with her. He becomes aware of the prophecy from an oracle as he searches for answers regarding his true parents. Disenchanted, he wanders the country and heads toward a new land "where I should never see the …show more content…
Teiresias realizes who Oedipus is and does not want to tell him that he is the murderer. Oedipus pressures him into it and Teiresias advises, “Listen to me. You mock my blindness, do you? But I say that you, with both your eyes, are blind: You can not see the wretchedness of your life, nor in whose house you live, no, nor with whom. Who are your father and mother? Can you tell me? You do not even know the blind wrongs that you have done them, on earth and in the world below.”
Sophocles uses the wisdom of Teiresias to cause misgivings in the proud Oedipus and Teiresias continues with the revelation “A blind man, who has his eyes now; a penniless man, who is rich now; and he will go tapping the strange earth with his staff; to the children with whom he lives now he will be brother and father - the very same; to her who bore him, son and husband - the very same who came to his father's bed, wet with his father's