Oedipus the King and The Tragedy of King Lear

Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex and William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of King Lear

One of the key themes in both Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of King Lear

and Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex is the importance of having a good

understanding of our condition as human beings – knowing ourselves,

the world that surrounds us and our place in it. At the same time,

however, both authors recognize the fact that blindness to this

knowledge of the human condition is a basic mortal trait. Thus, before

we can have an understanding of the human condition, we must endure a

journey to wisdom. The two authors view the journey to wisdom in terms

of metaphors of blindness and seeing. Sight is a frequently used

metaphor for perception, knowledge and awareness, whilst blindness

connotes ignorance, insensitivity and the inability to perceive and

understand. In the two plays, the characters are initially blind to

their own condition, which eventually leads them to make faulty

decisions, despite the warnings of others. Consequently the characters

suffer as a result of their poor judgment, and only then do they gain

sight and a clear understanding of their own situation. The characters

who undergo this journey are Shakespeare’s Lear and Gloucester, along

with Sophocles’ Oedipus.

At the beginning of his ‘journey’, Lear is blind to the fact that he

is just a mere mortal, which prevents him from acknowledging his own

faults and moral failings. He cannot see that the source of his own

power is the position of kingship, rather than some intrinsic quality

that separates him from his subjects. His own condition is essentially

masked by his kingship, power, wealth and the false self-image of a

‘dragon’[i]. Out of this blindness, Lear presents his daugh...

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...ead by madmen). Lear, Gloucester and Oedipus all go on a

journey for wisdom; however the knowledge of their own condition comes

too late, Lear goes mad, Oedipus and Gloucester loose their eyes. The

advantage we have, as the audience is drama’s godlike perspective,

which allows us to examine the lives of the characters of a play and

to detect our own blindness in due time. It must be noted that

Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of King Lear and Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex,

present us with two very different

[i] I.1.116

[ii] I.1.51

[iii] I.1.41

[iv] I.1.41

[v] I.1.96

[vi] I.1.301-302

[vii] I.1.158

[viii] I.1.159

[ix] I.1.157

[x] I.1.300-301

[xi] I.1.373

[xii] I.1.380-381

[xiii] I.1.318

[xiv] IV.5.101

[xv] V.3.253

[xvi] IV.6.69

[xvii] IV.1.18

[xviii] IV.5.141-142

[xix] IV.1.47