King Oedipus Rex by Sophocles

Winston Churchill once said “It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link of the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.” Throughout the story of Oedipus Rex we see continuing theme of sight and blindness, not only in a physical aspect but in a more universal theme of trying to see and navigate one’s own destiny. King Oedipus Rex is a man that has be told of his future of killing his father and sleeping with his mother. In “seeing” this he makes an attempt to change what he thinks is true, when in reality he knows nothing and his blindness to this inevitably succumbs him to what is foretold. Through the story we find that Oedipus is not only blind to what is happening around him but also to the ambition of finding King Laius’s killer and also his own involvement in it.

Sophocles plays with blindness and sight very vividly throughout the story line. The stories first irony starts with the character of Teiresias, a blind prophet that predicts the future. The prophet knows of what is to come and is pressured into telling the truth to Oedipus. Upon finding this out that he himself killed King Laius, Oedipus is outraged and thinks of the prophet a blind fool whose other senses are as mute as his sight. “You sightless, witless, senseless, mad old man.” (Davis 911). It is later revealed that not only Oedipus but all characters in the play with sight are blind to the truth until the end. Thinking that Creon (the queen’s brother) is behind what the prophets is saying, Oedipus blind to Creon’s friendship and loyalty persecutes him wanting to put him to death. It is not until Queen Iodate breaks up the fight does Oedipus back down. Oedipus remembers he did kill a few people in a similar situation as the one King Laius died in...

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...le desiring the same sex parent. Freud states the decline of this complex occurs through the threat of castration for boys and the desire for a baby for girls” (Rowell). Examples in music include “the End” by the Doors where the singer states he wants to kill his father and have sex with his mother. In the media and movies we see it making an appearance in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi where a power struggle between son and father break out as Luke battles the same sex parent but due to his mother’s death turns to his sister Leia as a forbidden love instead. Overall, I feel the story of Oedipus Rex seems to portray that men can show great abilities in insight and they have a strong drive to acquire knowledge, but even the most intellectual person has the ability to be wrong and that man’s ability to acquire knowledge is inevitably very constrained and undependable.