Vision and Blindness in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex (Essay Sample)

Vision and Blindness in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex
Annesha Banerjee
Semester-I
Roll number : SAJC/M/20/0149
Prof. Dr. Mou Chattopadhyay
English-CC2
28th February, 2021
Abstract:
“I'll bring it all to light myself"~ Oedipus, "Oedipus Rex". Oedipus's vision and intelligence revitalizes Thebes, giving it a great king. Yet, his blindness to the unpredictable destiny, makes him mock Tiresias, unaware of his looming doom. Learning his true past, Oedipus gouges his eyes out. In blindness, Oedipus, sees clearer.
Vision and Blindness in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex
The story of Oedipus, as narrated by Sophocles, is one of extreme horror and tragedy. The play revolves around several complex themes in its course, with the characters and the audience groping mysteriously in the terrifying darkness for the truth they might not even want to know. Once the ocean of unending doubt and confusion is traversed, the shore seems dark and deeply unsettling. A myth full of incest, hubris, cosmic irony and chaos, Oedipus the King or Oedipus Tyrannous presents a plethora of difficult emotions and a tumult of drama.
This deeply unsettling and unnerving series of events take the audience by shock and leave a question hanging in the air, “ What is blindness and what, is vision?"
This question directly connects to the broader aspect highlighting the shades of "Fate Vs. Free Will" in the tragedy. Oedipus is portrayed as a helpless figure subject to drastic fate. Even before he saw the light of the day, his fate was sealed. He was to kill his father, Laius and marry his mother, Queen Jocasta. According to Aristotle this play is completely the tragic story of a hero who tries hard to deceive his fate but fails again and again. Oedipus is a classic example of a classic tragic Greek hero.
He succumbs to his fate, unknowingly. Blindly.
Oedipus' character is that of an inquisitive, quick-witted man. A ruler with a capacity of swift actions, he feels deeply responsible for his people. When Thebes is struck with the deadly plague, he claims to feel the pain of each of his people.
On the other hand, Oedipus is a troubled man. He lives in a problematic and dark psychic realm. From his very birth, to his upbringing, to escaping Corinth and further on to become the ruler of Thebes, everything in his life bears a melancholic undertone. He has questions about himself that he cannot find answers to. He inches towards his deadly destiny every time he wants to run away from them.
His life is a series of unsettling and disturbing dramatic ironies.
"Oedipus", the name means "swollen-feet". He got this name because of the deep mark on his swollen feet which his parents had pinned down with the help of a skewer before they threw him away on the third day after his birth. His very own parents tried to escape the drastic fate he brought with him.
It so happened that when his father, King Laius, hears the prophecy, he decides his son better be dead. His mother, Jocasta, had to tear him apart from herself right giving birth to him and sacrifice him to save the life of her husband, just like he had ordered. However, the heart of a mother cried out at the Queen's ghastly responsibility of murdering her