Oedipus, A Liar, By Sophocles

Due to his arrogance and narcissism, Oedipus fails to take heed of Tiresias warning of whom Creon sent him and decided that the accusations that were being made against him are attempts to steal his throne. Likewise, Oedipus tells Tiresias when he was reluctant to tell Oedipus is Laius’ killer, “What then, thou knowest, and yet willst not speak!/Wouldst thou betray us and destroy the

Oedipus seems to believe that he is some sort of god, and that he is omnipotent. He tells the priest, “I see – how could I fail to see what longings bring you here?” (575, 70-71). Towards the beginning of the play, Oedipus is accusing a man, Tiresias, of trying to overthrow him and of killing the old King Laius. Keep in mind – Tiresias is blind himself. Oedipus condemns, “…short of killing him with your own hands – and given eyes I’d say you did the killing single-handed” (583, 396-397). This is just one of the first instances where loss of vision is mentioned. Oedipus is blindly calling him a liar, while he does not even know the truth himself. Oedipus many times claims that Tiresias cannot see something; however, the “things” he cannot see are almost always moral, not physical. It seems as though Oedipus blames Tiresias’ blindness for not being able to understand ethical situations. For example, “…you cannot see how far

“Well then! Alright! I will leave nothing unsaid in my wrath. And I say to you then, old man, that in my mind I have you as one of those who has helped in Laius’ murder! Yes, old man! You have worked with them. Perhaps even you, yourself, have committed the deed! Indeed, if you had eyes that could see I would have said you did the deed all alone!” (Sophocles 346-350). When engaging with the blind prophet, Oedipus attempts to pry the truth out of Tiresias by accusing him, Tiresias of the murder. He thinks that if he starts making accusations towards Tiresias, he will in turn tell the truth so that people don’t start hearing this rumor.

Oedipus is starting to get frustrated with Tiresias because Tiresias is accusing Oedipus and saying that he is the wound that is in the city, he is the one that killed Laius “ you can hurt no one, old man; neither me nor anyone else who sees the light. Your food bowl is a never ending darkness” meaning your words do not affect me and my people because i will not let them believe, and if so i will bring justice upon you. The words that you speak are nothing but a bunch of lies that you will carry for all

One of the many symbols Sophocles portrays throughout the play is sight and blindness. Sight represents how Oedipus had eyesight, but was still “blind” to the truth of himself throughout most of the play. He was both hesitant and unaware of the events that built up to

Oedipus the King was written by Sophocles and was is titled Oedipus Rex in Latin. It is one of the most well-known Greek tragedies. As is the case with Greek tragedies—or roughly most tragedies that make their way to stage—fate plays a key role in the events in Oedipus Rex. Oedipus discovers there is a plague on his city. The only way to lift the plague is by slaying the former king’s killer. As the play’s acts unfold one discovers about the prophecy concerning Oedipus. The prophecy states that Oedipus is destined to kill his father and marry his mother. But was this just by chance or his predetermined fate.

From the very beginning of Oedipus, one can see that the main character of Oedipus is very sure about who he is and where he has come from. One of the most important motifs of the story is the idea of metaphorical blindness, and how Oedipus claims that everyone else around him is blind, and he is the only one that can see. However, what Oedipus soon finds out is that he has no idea who he is, and that all along he has been blind himself. Sophocles makes Oedipus suffer because of the fact that he actually has no idea who he is, and almost avoids figuring it out. It takes a defining moment for it to dawn on Oedipus that he is not who he thought he was. Oedipus’ blindness seems to have been his downfall, but the more prevalent question that

At the beginning of the play, Oedipus uses verbal violence to threaten Tiresias. A plague has struck the city of Thebes, and Oedipus learns from Kreon that the plague will only end when the murderer of Laius has been caught. When Oedipus asks Tiresias for help, Tiresias initially refuses to share what he knowns and instead comments about Oedipus’ inability to see the truth. However, Oedipus becomes infuriated and insults the blind prophet. “Now I see it all. You helped hatch the plot…with your own hands…Old man. You’ve lost your power, stone-blind, stone-deaf- senses, eyes blind as stone” (103-104). The quote is an example of verbal violence because Oedipus curses and insults Tiresias, accusing the prophet of conspiring against him with the help of Kreon. Tiresias then introduces another riddle, telling Oedipus that the murderer of Laius is both the father and sibling to his incestuous children, and also the son of his beloved wife. When Oedipus mocks Tiresias for answering only in riddles, Tiresias responds with, “Ah, but aren’t you the best man alive at solving riddles?” (105). As described here, Oedipus presents himself as extremely confident in his ability to untangle puzzles, but this ultimately leads to his own downfall. Given these examples, it is evident that Oedipus’ use of verbal violence against Kreon and Tiresias accurately illustrates his

The main character, Oedipus, in Sophocles’ play Oedipus The King is heroic in his search for the truth, just as scholar Bernard Knox states. Oedipus is faced with a decision: he can either seek out a potentially terrible truth, or ignore it and let the city of Thebes succumb to the plague that has befallen them. Oedipus chooses to search for the truth and does so heroically because he is doing it for his people rather than personal gain, he is transparent about new findings, and he will stop at nothing to find the truth.

In Sophocles greek tragedy Oedipus Rex, Oedipus’ actions toward Tiresias reveal that his tragic flaw is that he is very impulsive. When Tiresias arrives in Thebes Oedipus immediately starts to question Tiresias about who killed king Lauis. Tiresias knows the answers to all of Oedipus’ questions, but does not wish to share the secret. Oedipus continues to bother Tiresias in an effort to discover the secret, however, Tiresias refuses to give up the information. As a result of Tiresias withholding information Oedipus becomes impatient and grows angry. When Tiresias explains to Oedipus that he is not telling Oedipus the truth for the greater good of Thebes, Oedipus reacts in a rather harsh way. Oedipus responds to Tiresias “Nothing! You scum of the earth, you’d enrage a heart of stone! You won’t talk? Nothing moves you?” (Sophocles 391-394). In other words, Oedipus is calling Tiresias a terrible person that could make a person with no emotion angry. Oedipus thinks Tiresias is like this because he won’t tell him and the people of Thebes who the murderer of Lauis is. Because Oedipus starts to rattle off so many insults toward Tiresias, who is a respected elder in the greek community, his remarks are very impulsive. Oedipus did not think before he spoke, being disrespectful to someone who has great authority. As the conversation continues and Tiresias still refuses to share information and Oedipus’ frustration grows stronger. Tiresias and Oedipus banter back and forth. Tiresias tells Oedipus that he won’t say anything, Oedipus responds very abruptly and says “You helped hatch the plot, you did the work, yes, short of killing him with your own hands-and given eyes I’d say you did the killing single-handed” (Sophocles 394-397). Oedipus is trying to say that Tiresias knew about the murder even before the murder occurred, and that if Tiresias had the ability to see, he would’ve done the killing himself. Since Oedipus is accusing Tiresias of such a huge crime, this shows Oedipus’ impulsiveness because he started to accuse innocent people of things that they did not due simply because he is not getting his way.

Oedipus intelligence could not see the truth, but the blind man, Teiresias, saw it plainly. Sophocles uses blindness as a theme in the play. Oedipus was uninformed and as a result blind to the truth about himself and his past. Yet, when Teiresias exposes the truth he is in denial. It is left to Oedipus to conquer his blindness, accept the truth, and realize fate. But instead Oedipus ridicules Terirsias blindness and accuses him of being on the side of Kreon and helping him become King. He accuses Teiresias for being paid to tell a fraudulent prophecy to him. Quickly Teiresias answers him back and tells him he is BLIND, and tells him about his past of who his actual mother and father was.

At the beginning, Oedipus is ignorant and is constantly avoids and ignores the truth in order to protect his reputation. Oedipus’ unwillingness to open his ears to the truth develops when Tiresias reveals that he killed Laius and one of his responses is, “Your words are nothing-- / futile” (416-417). Although Oedipus begged to hear Tiresias’ words, he was not willing to pay attention or open his eyes to the unfortunate idea. Oedipus pushes aside the words Tiresias says, refusing to believe that he could be the one who killed Laius, the one who must be cursed. Later, Tiresias brings up Oedipus’ ignorance saying “you’re blind to the corruption of your life” (471), and telling him a few lines later that “No man will ever / be rooted from the earth as brutally as you” (488-489). Oedipus was put in his place and blatantly told that he is ignorant but his rise to knowledge will also bring his demise. Sophocles foreshadowed using Tiresias in that way, but Oedipus was so into avoiding any confrontation with the truth at the beginning that he would respond calling Tiresias’ visions “absurdities” (494). Therefore, even though the truth has been revealed to him, Oedipus still chooses to remain blind to the truth in order to remain good in the eyes of his people.

Oedipus’ inability to recognize his father, in other words his blindness, is the main connection to his own downfall. Eyesight and vision are reoccurring symbols in the play that represent a distinctive sign that helps the audience recognize when the truth is known and when Oedipus is unable or unwilling to see the truth. Wheelwright explains, “[W]hat we have…seen many times is that Oedipus acts not only in blindness but with blindness” (249). This means that Oedipus knows of the truth, yet ignores the truth because he is fearful of his fate. Therefore,

People may be blinded to truth, and may not realize what truth is, even if truth is standing in front of them. They will never see truth becase they are blind to it. In Oedipus Rex by Sophocles it is easy to see how blindness affects the transition of the story. It is said that blind people see “in a different manner” because they sense the world in a totally diferent way, such as Teiresias in the play. Oedipus Rex is a tragedy due to the content the Sophocles, the playwright, decided to include, first, murdering his father, king Laius, then marrying his mother, Jocasta, and ending by blinding himself. Oedipus has been blinded to the truth all his life. Eventually, when he seeks the truth he intentionally loses his physical vision, and

Oedipus Rex is a play about the way we blind ourselves to painful truths that we can’t bear to see. Physical sight and blindness are used throughout the play, often ironically, as a metaphor for mental sight and blindness. The play ends with the hero Oedipus literally blinding himself to avoid seeing the result of his terrible fate. But as the play demonstrates, Oedipus, the man who killed his father and impregnated his mother, has been blind all along, and is partly responsible for his own blindness.