What is imagery in Oedipus Rex?
The metaphor of light and darkness is dominantly used in this play. In this play, literal sight is contrasted with ‘insight’. In this play, both imagery of light and darkness represent Teiresias and Oedipus. Though Teireias is blind, the imagery of light is used to show that he holds reality on the ground.
How is sight used in Oedipus Rex?
In Oedipus Rex, Sophocles uses blindness as an important motif to deliver a message by making Oedipus “blind” both literally and metaphorically. Throughout the story Oedipus tends to avoid “seeing” the truth about his prophecy, while Tiresias ‘ physical blindness allows him to “see” the truth.
What does sight and blindness represent in Oedipus Rex?
Sophocles demonstrates the imagery of sight against blindness through the manner in which the intricacies of ignorance on Oedipus’s part result in the tragic end to his life.
What does Oedipus blindness symbolize?
Oedipus blinds himself as a symbol of self-realization and insight. It is an irony because he chooses to be physically blind after seeing everything he has done. He realizes that he was figuratively blind throughout the play, therefore he punishes himself by blinding himself.
What is sight a metaphor for in Oedipus?
Oedipus Rex is a sad tragedy in which Sophocles clearly demonstrates the metaphor of sight and insight, which shows that for one to see the truth and/or reality, one does not need physical sight. Oedipus was ignorant of his reality regardless of his vision. Teiresias, then again, could simply see the truth.
How are darkness and lightness related to sight?
Light and darkness are tightly wound together with sight and blindness. Tiresias would be considered ‘in the dark’ because he cannot see but encounters light because of the wisdom he has. Oedipus is in the dark because of his inability to see what is going on around him.
How does the motif of blindness vs sight develop the characterization of Oedipus?
When Oedipus mocks Tiresias’s blindness, Tiresias predicts that Oedipus himself will soon be blind. And indeed, when Oedipus learns the full story—that he has killed his father and married his mother—he gouges out his eyes. He learns the nature of fate and the power of the gods, but at a great cost.
Why should I have eyes why when nothing I saw was worth seeing?
At the end of the play, when Oedipus sees that he has murdered his father and had children with his mother, he cannot bear to see the reality of what he has done and blinds himself: “Why should I have eyes? Why, when nothing I saw was worth seeing”? (1723-1724).
What are some symbols in Oedipus Rex?
Three prominent symbols in Sophocles’s Oedipus the King are eyes, the crossroads, and Oedipus’s ankles. The eyes represent the theme of sight vs. blindness, or knowledge vs. ignorance.
Who is blind in Oedipus Rex?
But he is blind to the truth about his own life. It takes the blind prophet, Tiresias, to point out his ignorance and to plant the first seeds of doubt in Oedipus’s mind. When Oedipus mocks Tiresias’s blindness, Tiresias predicts that Oedipus himself will soon be blind.
What is blindness a symbol of?
Blindness symbolizes a refusal to see reality, or may instead refer to an inner vision, prophetic; it could mean ignorance, darkeness, error or impartiality.
How does Sophocles use metaphor of eyes seeing blindness as literary device?
Sophocles uses the metaphor of sight as literary device to build Oedipus’s inability to see the truth that he is the one who has murdered the king and that it is his “blindness” that brought him to Thebes in the first place.