Comparing Allegory Of The Cave And Oedipus The King

The Allegory of the Cave and Oedipus the King are two very different stories. The Allegory of the Cave is about a single prisoner who is lead out of a cave he had been in since his childhood and sees the true light of day. Oedipus the King is about a man who wants to find the murderer in his city and all the secrets of his past come to light and lead to a tragic end. Hmm…maybe when you really think about it The Allegory of the Cave and Oedipus the King really are kind of similar. Along with comparisons, there are contrasts with these two stories. Both the philosopher and Oedipus didn’t realize they were in the darkness, but once they entered the true light of enlightenment, they became permanently blind. Although the philosopher is very reluctant

to learn more, Oedipus searches desperately to find out who he really is.
In The Allegory of the Cave, the philosopher is only metaphorically blind. This happens after he has been outside, in the sunlight, long enough to realize that he must share his new discovery with the others in the cave. He tried to tell the prisoners that the shadows only had the true image, but they rejected him. He is now blind to the shadows and trapped in the world of knowledge. In Oedipus the King, the king is physically blind. This happens because he didn’t want to go back to being ignorant of his past. He became obsessed with finding the truth. This lead to him, unfortunately, gauging his eyes out because the enlightenment was too much for him to take in all at once.
Knowledge and truth are considered good-like but not good. In the philosopher’s case, it was a knowledge that was beneficial to him and it was good or beneficial to the king. As Tiresias says in Oedipus the King, “Alas, how terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the man that is wise (347).”
Comparing these two characters, they both didn’t know they were in the darkness and they both became blind after being enlightened.