Oedipus the King - Blindness

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 the evil to which Oedipus has fallen prey to. Tragically, as Oedipus gains the internal gift of sight, he discards his outward gift of sight. Sight, therefore, seems to be like good and evil, a person may only choose one.

Teiresias, prophet of Phoebus, was stricken with blindness to the physical world, but, as a result, gained the gift of sight into the spiritual world. This great gift allowed him to become a superior prophet, praised by the people as "god like" and as a person "in whom the truth lives." Therefore, it