World Literature - Oedipus Blindness

Blindness

Is there a single definition of what it is to see? I can see the table, I can see your point, I see the real you, I don't see what you're saying. Sometimes the blind can see more than the sighted. To be blind is to be made without sight of certain objects or knowledge of certain facts that could serve for guidance. Oedipus in Oedipus the King is the model of a good ruler, a humanity intelligent and vigorously active leader, a man who earlier saved his adopted city Thebes from disaster. Oedipus is showed to be a father figure to the city of Thebes. He will be overturn by his blindness of not knowing of certain facts of his life but later have sight.

Oedipus fled his home of Corinth in fear of fulfilling the prophecy by Apollo that he would kill his father and marry his mother. During his flight, Oedipus kills a caravan of presumed low-class travelers. Oedipus comes into Thebes a stranger and hero who solved the riddle of the sphinx. Believing that he is blessed with great luck, Oedipus marries the recently widowed Jocasta and becomes King of Thebes. After many years, a plague vexes the city and Kreon, brother of Jocasta, comes to Oedipus with news from the oracle. He states that the plague will be lifted when the murder of Laios is avenged. Oedipus claims that he sees and understands the terrible fate of Thebes and vows to find the murderer. Since the criminal is said to still be in Thebes, Oedipus believes that a man of his intelligence should have no difficulty in finding the perpetrator. When Oedipus is confronted by Teiresias with truth, perhaps it is Oedipus' own hubris, which blinds him to the unthinkable truth.

A messenger comes to Oedipus to bring him knowledge of what he is unaware. He learned that the parents who he was avoiding for years were not even his. So he had to uncover a shepherd that rescue him from dying lonely in the woods to obtain information of his biological parents .Oedipus discover that he is marry to his mother and kill his father which were prophesized to him in his younger days .

Oedipus was blind, blind of knowledge of who he really was. Living in a fairytale life where everything could not have been better. Being blind doesn't just mean that you can't physical see . You can see but still be blind of who you really are or what you really seeing.