This reluctance to think that someone might have pity on a baby that is only days old contributed to the inability to know the truth. Laius and Jocasta assumed that there baby was killed but never went and sought for proof. The shepherd took him to the city of Corinth where he was raised by Polybus and Merope, members of the royal family. The shepherd who was instructed to kill baby Oedipus, felt sorry for the newborn and figured that it would be just as effective to let the baby grow up in a far away city, so that he would never know or meet his biological parents. When Oedipus was just a baby he was taken away from Thebes to be left on a barren mountain to die after an oracle had told his father Laius, "that doom would strike him down at the hands of a son"(1176). The protagonist of the play, Oedipus, is "blind" to the fact that the fate that he had tried so hard to avoid, had come true without him knowing of it, while the physically blind prophet Tiresias was the one who can actually "see" and understand the truth and the actions that had already occurred. Throughout the tragedy Oedipus the King, Sophocles' repeatedly bring up the idea of sight and uses it as a metaphor for insight and knowledge. Thanks ahead of time for your help.Īuthor Samuel Butler once wrote, "A blind man knows he cannot see, and is glad to be led, though it be by a dog but he that is blind in his understanding, which is the worst blindness of all, believes he sees as the best, and scorns a guide." Even people that have great vision and can literally "see," can still be "blind" to truth and complete understanding of it. I know I have to go and put in more citations than what is already in it. I would really like if someone could help me with making my thesis stronger and help me with points that would make the essay a lot stronger. Theseus keeps his word, and Oedipus's death occurs just as he predicted it would.I'm writing an essay that is supposed to make an argument as to what the overall message or theme of the play is. But Oedipus has become something of a prophet himself-he predicts the miserable death of Polynices, and Polynices leaves, knowing he cannot avoid his fate. Based on the predictions of another oracle, both Polynices and Creon come to find Oedipus and try to win his favor-by persuasion or by force-to their respective causes, knowing that whoever has Oedipus on their side is destined to win. Theseus accepts this version of fate, and the supernatural way in which Oedipus dies suggests that the gods have, in fact, afforded the old man some power in death. He convinces Theseus, king of Athens, that an oracle has predicted that Oedipus's tomb will serve as a great defense for Athens if Theseus protects Oedipus at the end of his life. No longer one to question the power of fate, Oedipus refuses to leave the area of the grove. When he arrives at the grove of the Furies at Colonus, he realizes that in the same prophecy that foretold his fate, the oracle said that this grove would be the spot where he would die. When Oedipus learned what he had inadvertently done, he gouged out his own eyes, and was banished from Thebes.Īs Oedipus at Colonus begins, Oedipus is nearing the end of his life. Despite his efforts to avoid this terrible fate, it came to pass.
Long before the beginning of Oedipus at Colonus, Oedipus has fulfilled one of the most famous prophecies in world literature-that he would kill his father and marry his mother (these events are covered in detail in Sophocles's Oedipus Rex). Oracles were an accepted part of Greek life-famous leaders and common people alike consulted them for help with making all kinds of decisions. Oracles, priests who resided at the temples of gods-such as the oracle to Apollo at Delphi-were also believed to be able to interpret the gods' visions and give prophecies to people who sought to know the future. Independent prophets, called seers, saw visions of things to come. The ancient Greeks believed that their gods could see the future, and that certain people could access this information.
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