Blindness in Oedipus the King

Blindness plays a two-fold part in Sophocles’ tragedy “Oedipus the King.” First, Sophocles presents blindness as a physical disability affecting the auger Teiresias, and later Oedipus; but later, blindness comes to mean an inability to see the evil in one’s actions and the consequences that ensue. The irony in this lies in the fact that Oedipus, while gifted with sight, is blind to himself, in contrast to Teiresias, blind physically, but able to see …

…that the Sphinx served good more than he served evil, a highly contested fact. In conclusion, the theme of sight dominated Sophocles’ tragedy “Oedipus the King.” The characters Teiresias, Oedipus, and the Sphinx were used to show the different types of sight – physical, spiritual, and both. Overall though, Sophocles used sight as an extended metaphor, in which the prevailing form of sight showed his master – good or evil, of which there can be only one.