The Greeks: Always Letting You Know that Your Life Could Be Worse

As though Sophocles wanted to give us hints about the end of the play, he uses blindness as a constant theme throughout. But blindness and its connotations serve a much greater purpose in the story that just foreshadowing. Blindness, Sophocles shows us, is actually the flaw that brings Oedipus to his end, what we may call his tragic flaw.

One of the largest representations of blindness in the play is Oedipus’s blindness to his actions and true identity. The scene with Teiresias is particularly ironic because even though Teiresias is blind, it is Oedipus that cannot see the truth of his own life. Teiresias insists that Oedipus is better off not knowing the truth about who killed Laius. But Oedipus is “blind” to what the seer is implying and flies into a rage at the man for refusing to disclose what he knows. He even goes so far as to accuse Teiresias himself of plotting the murder. Even when Teiresias flat out tells him the truth, Oedipus still refuses to believe it. He instead turns his anger toward Creon, who initially suggested sending for the seer. He enters into a “blind” rage, throwing accusations and harsh words at everyone to try to deny what he has done. This blindness to his past, his predicament, and his rage eventually manifests itself in his actual blindness. But as is custom in tragedies, Oedipus does morally redeem himself. By blinding himself, he gives himself a symbolic punishment for being ignorant and denying his identity.

Another way that Sophocles hints at Oedipus's fate is through talking about seeing and sight constantly throughout the play. For example, when Teiresias accuses Oedipus of being ignorant of his past, he says that Oedipus "see'st not in what misery" he will fall. While this is extremely slight in meaning, Sophocles could have just as easily written that Oedipus did not understand or know of his past, but he instead uses the imagery of sight to describe it. Even as Teiresias is introduced, the chorus says, “if any man sees eye to eye/With our lord Phoebus, 'tis our prophet.” Oedipus, too, foreshadows his own doom. When he is talking to Jocasta about his fears, he asks the gods to “Forbid, forbid that I should see that day!” Oh the irony. Even looking into Oedipus’s background, we would almost expect his fate. Oedipus is extremely regarded for his clear sight, or insight, but because he is so ignorant to his past, it undermines this reputation. In a way, his physical blindness just symbolizes the full death of his sight in the non-physical sense. For those who are paying special attention to the language of this story, Oedipus’s fate is not entirely surprising; we knew he rambled on about sight and seeing and blindness for some reason.

In a large sense, Oedipus’s fate in the play is fairly predictable. His behavior seems to be strongly associated with the concept of blindness; he is blinded by rage and essentially blind to his true identity. The story also hints at the ending by following the theme of sight and blindness in the language and background of the story. Even if you hadn’t read the mythology that accompanies this play, the characterizations, language, and background of the story all help the reader to predict Oedipus’s tragic fate. (555)

Now Where'd I Put That Giant Shoe...

It is important to note that the title of this story, "The Metamorphosis", does not only apply to Gregor Samsa. Yes our notice quickly is drawn the transformation of man to giant bug but he is not the only character that undergoes a significant transformation. Other members of his family, namely his father and sister, also undergo profound change because of Gregor's state.

Gregor's sister, Grete, goes through profound change after Gregor's own transformation. Initially, Grete is the most supportive member of the family. She becomes Gregor's caretaker in many ways, even taking special note of his new dietary likes and dislikes. As time goes on, however, Grete begins to lose faith that Gregor's state could improve and even that the giant bug in her house is truly her brother. In the end, she even goes so far as to say that the bug could not possibly be Gregor, because Gregor would have tried to spare them of this misery. We see through this chain that Grete makes more of a negative transformation in the story. She starts out as a loving and sweet sister and even manages to maintain her caring state after Gregor's transformation. But in the end she too transforms, into a selfish person who couldn’t care less about her brother’s unfortunate state. She goes through this extremely negative transformation as a result of Gregor’s state and ends up making his existence even worse.

Gregor’s father also undergoes a profound change after Gregor’s transformation, but his is much more positive than Grete’s. Before, when Gregor was supplying the family’s income, his father was lazy and depressed, sitting at home all day while Gregor works to support the family. When Gregor transforms and obviously stops working, his father is forced to return to work. Rather than making him bitter, however, working returns the father’s vitality and confidence. He transforms back into a full person. For someone, Gregor’s transformation actually has positive impact on life. His positive changes still take tolls on Gregor’s life, but he does manage to become a stronger and better person out of necessity.

Gregor is by no means the only member of the family that goes through a profound transformation in this story. Grete, his sister, changes for the worse, beginning as a caring maternal figure and evolving into a selfish jerk like the rest of her family. His father changes for the better, becoming a more confident and stronger person than he was when Gregor was working. Positive or negative, the family’s changes only mean bad things for Gregor, who suffers from his father’s aggression and his sister’s lack of faith. In many ways, we have to consider that the title “the Metamorphosis” encompasses much more than one man’s transformation into a bug. (460)

Well...You Could Have at Least Cried at the Funeral!

Selfishness is a constant theme in “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”. Throughout the story, characters continually prove that more often than not, people are more likely to worry more about themselves and their own problems. Ilyich too is selfish throughout his entire life. Unlike the others, however, Ilyich suffers because of his selfishness. Tolstoy uses Ilyich and the characters around him to illustrate the damaging effects of selfishness.

From the very first chapter, we see that the people all around Illyich care more about themselves than the dying Ivan. One example of this is Peter Ivanovich and Ilyich’s other “friends”. You would expect a dead man’s closest friends to be grieving and inconsolable after their friend’s death. But alas, no. There are much more important things, like bridge, for them to worry about. Peter and the others care much more about how his death affects their own lives. After all, their positions in society will change and they will have to go through the grueling agony of consoling the widow.

Ah yes…the widow. Of all people in the entire world, we would most expect her to be crushed by her husband’s death. However, she too is more worried about how his death affects her own life. She asks Peter if she can find a way to get more widow’s compensation and laments over how hard the last three weeks of his life were for her. In the later chapters that take place before his actual death, she again isn’t sympathetic or concerned for him. During much of that time, in fact, she is impatient for his death and only feigns worry for him. Again the people closest to Ilyich fail to care about him even in his dying days.

Ilyich, too, is a selfish, uncaring character but unlike the other characters, he is hurt by his selfish behaviors. In the descriptions of his life, Tolstoy shows that Ilyich also doesn’t put in the effort to worry about other people. He never truly seems to care about anyone else. He doesn’t marry his wife for love and later doesn’t put in the effort to fix problems in their relationship. Like his friends, Ivan won’t do anything uncomfortable or unpleasant even if it is to help someone he supposedly cares about. By the time Ilyich figures out his mistakes, he is too isolated and sick to repair the damage. When he dies, he is lonely and full of regret. He only wishes for someone to care about him and pity him, but with all that he has done, nobody does. Not only does this show the consequences of his own selfishness but also the selfishness of the people around him. Ilyich, however, is the only one we see suffer for his selfishness. Tolstoy uses him as an example of how selfishness creates loneliness in the end. Even though he uses many characters to show the ugliness of human selfishness, Tolstoy uses Ilyich as the specific example of its consequences.

In the entire story of Ivan Ilyich, Tolstory creates a pattern of people who are extremely selfish to warn readers away from being selfish. He starts by creating a dislikeable cast of secondary characters who only care about themselves even in light of their friend’s death. Next he presents Ilyich’s life story and shows how his selfish behavior eventually lead to his suffering at the end of his life. By presenting Ilyich as the selfish characters who suffers and falls into a lonely death, Tolstory warns readers that selfishness is one of the most damaging flaws for anyone to have.