Oedipus the King

Q.1 (1) With what kinds of enlightement and darkness is the play concerned?

Ans.

Enlightenment (light) means knowledge on the part of Tiresias. Even though he is physically blind and and cannot see, he is still a fountain of knowledge because he foresees what is happening around the town. On the other hand Darkness and blidness can be viewed as ignorance and lack of knowldge, looking at Oedipus the king. He is not physically blind but he lacks knowledge. He has the the sight but cannot see beyond the his physical sight.

There are a number of references in Oedipus the King to blindness and sight and light and darkness. This study finds some of them and explains the role of such group of images in this play. Oedipus the King is generally considered his most representative image work (Vernant, 19-38). Aristotle considered it a perfect tragedy. As well as all his works, this tragedy talks about fatalism, a traditional theme for Greek literature. Something specific to Sophocles is to focus upon the interior life of his characters. This kind of image was to be considered a very modern approach, in fact the early introduction of psycho-analysis technique to the dramatic writings. The plot is about Oedipus, main character, who kills his father and marries his mother in an attempt to avoid the very prophecy he ultimately fulfils.

Oedipus cannot escape his fate, but he finally finds peace, after enduring the worst the fates had to offer. Oedipus still is the most played tragedy of all Greek theatre (Wilson, 181). Most of the story takes place before the first line of the play. Oedipus, the protagonist or the main character, is the son of King Laius and Queen Jocasta of Thebes. An oracle predicts that Laius is " doomed/ to perish by the hand of his own son. After learning this, he decides to deliver Oedipus, his infant son, to a servant, with orders to kill him. But the servant has not got the strength to fulfils the king's request and, instead abandons the baby in the fields, as they believes the baby's fate has to be decided by the gods.

The baby is rescued by a shepherd, who gives him the name of Oedipus (or "swollen foot"). Not having the means to raise the infant, the shepherd gives it to a fellow shepherd from a distant land. This second shepherd carries the baby with him to Corinth. Here Oedipus is raised in the court of the childless King Polybus of Corinth, as if he were his own. After some years, when Oedipus was a young man, he hears a rumour that he is not the biological son of Polybus and his wife Merope. Very suspicious, and because nobody conforms this hypothesis, he asks the Delphic Oracle whom his parents really are. Instead of giving him a direct answer, the Oracle tells him he is destined to "Mate with his own mother, and shed with his own hands the blood of his own ...