People can be ""blinded"" to the truth. The answer to their question or solution to their problem

may have been obvious. Yet, they could not "see" the answer. They were blinded to the truth.

Associations have been made between being blind and enlightened. A blind person is said to

have powers to see invisible things. They "see" into the future. The blind may not have physical

sight, but they have another kind of vision. In Sophocles' King Oedipus, Teiresias, the blind

prophet, presents the truth to King Oedipus and Jocasta. Oedipus has been blinded to the truth his

whole life. When he does find the truth, he loses his physical vision. Because of the truth,

Oedipus blinds himself. Jocasta was blind to the true identity of Oedipus. Even when she found

out the truth, she refused to accept it. In this case, those who are blind ultimately do have a

Kind Oedipus started life with a prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother. In

an attempt to avoid this fate, his parents, Laius and Jocasta, sent him into the mountains to die.

However, a shepherd saved Oedipus. This shepherd gave Oedipus to Polybus and Merope. When

to point to the whole truth of the matter, Jocasta refused to accept what had really happened. She

intellectual blindness as well. The blindness issue is an effective contrasting method for Oedipus

Oedipus, Teiresias, and Jocasta were all blind, yet all found the truth.

truth, but the blind man, Teiresias, "saw" it plainly. Sophocles uses blindness as a motif in the

Use of Irony in Oedipus Rex Sophocles, the playwright of Oedipus Rex, often wrote scripts for

blindness was to kill herself. In this play, blindness led to the truth, and the truth led to blindness.

- this blind man can "see" the truth about Oedipus, yet Oedipus, in all of his physical perfection,

in Sophocles'' play Oedipus Rex, could not see the truth, but the blind man, Teiresias, "saw" it

Some common words found in the essay are:
Oedipus Oedipus, Oedipus Rex, Thebes Oedipus', Greece Sophocles, King Oedipus, Laius Jocasta, Merope Oedipus, Jocasta Oedipus, King Rex, King Sources, oedipus rex, truth oedipus, physical blindness, play oedipus, blind truth, play oedipus rex, physically blind, king oedipus, oedipus oedipus, oedipus' physical, blindness oedipus, oedipus' physical blindness, truth oedipus oedipus, blind teiresias plainly, parents laius jocasta,
Approximate Word count = 1895
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)