Sight is a word that describes more than physical vision, or eyesight. Sophocles’ play, Oedipus Rex, offers an ironic comparison between Oedipus, who is blessed with vision yet can not comprehend what goes on around him, and Tiresias who is blind but aware of the truth. The author shows how our ability to see the truth is often obfuscated by our materialistic pursuit of worldly possessions. We become like Oedipus who despite having physical vision could not see the truth yet Tiresias, a man without physical vision, plainly saw and understood the truth. In Oedipus Rex, Sophocles compares Tiresias’ sightlessness with Oedipus’ ignorance to demonstrate the fact that truth is not what we see with our eyes but the knowledge that resides within us.
Oedipus is not literally blind but he is unable to see the truth that is obvious to him because he lacks both wisdom and inner vision. His blindness to the truth is exemplified by several factors. The first one is his inability to realize that he is indeed the murderer of Laius. He is so blind to the fact that he is the murderer that he curses himself should the murderer be a member of his household: “I curse myself as well …if by any chance he [the murderer] proves to be an intimate of our house, here at my hearth, with my full knowledge, may the curse I just called down on him strike me!” (Sophocles 624). In his blindness, he does not realize that he is in fact cursing himself.
Jocasta is also another character who, although physically sighted, she has been blind to the fact that her husband has all along been the son she gave away to be murdered. She does not see the true identity of Oedipus. When the truth finally dawns on her, she finds it so horrifying that she can not accept it. She was found “…hanging by the neck, cradled high in a woven noose, spinning, swinging back and forth” (Sophocles 651).
Tiresias is physically blind but in his other uniquely higher vision, he is able to see all the truth about Oedipus. He knows that Oedipus is indeed the killer of Laius therefore the cause of the plague. The truth about Oedipus is so sickening that Tiresias preffers it should never be known to Oedipus. This is why he says, “How terrible – to see the truth when the truth is only pain to him who sees!” (Sophocles 626). The reality is too painful that it is preferable to be physically blind than confront it. This is what eventually leads oedipus to pierce his eyes with pins so that he can be “…blind to the ones you longed to see, to know! Blind from this hour on! Blind in the darkness – blind!” (Sophocles 651). He would rather live behind the darkness of blindness than see the horror in the eyes of the children he sired with his own mother.
There is irony in the text when the blind prophet happens to be the one who sees the truth better than those who can literaly see. He therefore has the ability to speak the truth and is believed by many. The truth in this case resides with a blind person and can not be perceived by a man who can see. The play Oedipus Rex shows the relationship between literal and metaphorical definitions of blindness, giving the phrase “seeing the truth” a deeper meaning.
Works Cited
Sophocles. Oedipus Rex. The Norton Anthrology of World Literature. Beginnings to AD 100. Volume A. Sarah Lawall. New York, N.Y: W. W. Norton & Company, 2003. 617-658.