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)