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According to Sophocles, one must not only see something but also understand it. The only ones who can truly see are the blind. This is a popular theme, especially in Oedipus Rex where Sophocles rears the idea that in real vision the eye is not needed to see the surface things. Sophocles uses the theme of light vs darkness in his play Oedipus. He utilizes the imagery of light and darkness. In this play, light shows us the image of understanding, and darkness shows us ignorance. Tiresias is only the character that is physically blind and the only person who can really see through the drama what he is and will be. Oedipus himself acquires this state of true knowledge when he blinds himself with his mother`s, and wife`s clasp.
The first form of light and darkness is knowledge, It represents the power of the characters to look beyond the surface of things and to understand what they really are. I must bring what is dark to light in reference to the mystery of Laio's death. This is spoken by Oedipus and this is the first and most obvious example, and it sets the stage for the use of light and darkness to represent knowledge throughout the rest of the play. Secondly light shows the plot of understanding and darkness shows the plot of ignorance. There are two characters who show the significance of light and darkness. One is Oedipus and the other one is the blind Prophet. At the beginning of the play kind Oedipus called a prophet to help him with who killed the past king but the prophet directly tells that Oedipus is the murderer of king Lai's death. He got angry and says disrespectful words to the prophet. The prophet says you ridicule my blindness, but let me inform you, that all your eyes, you are blind to the corruption of your life. Those lines bring light to the lightness of this play. After Being blind he puts light on the truth. Oedipus was so mad and his wife tries to know what is the reason for his anger. Oedipus tells her everything. Then the queen says I knew the truth. I know how my husband was killed. She also says a man kills my husband. And elaborate on the scene. The wife of Oedipus also tells him a god told them they will birth a boy who will be the reason for the death of the king and them throughout their child so that he will not kill his father. But a strange kills his past husband. After knowing all this Oedipus leaves the thieves and goes to Corinth. After being there he came to know that he was the murderer of the past king and he was his father and he sleeps with his own mother and gave birth to Childs. This was too painful for him to handle. He thoughts he was blind for all his life and far away from reality. This conflict shows the horror and darkness. And That`s how a prophet represents the light and Oedipus represents the darkness. After knowing those things Oedipus blinded Himself. He gets punished for the guilt of sleeping with his mother and he ensures that he will never see his child in his own eyes.
The use of light and darkness to represent the truth is also an important part of the play. Oedipus`s physical blindness is an outward expression of his previous inner condition, which did not allow him to see the world around him as it really was.
In short, Oedipus Rex tells the story of blindness and sight, and the difference between light and darkness, which is much more complicated than we might realize. Oedipus is a man with naked eyes, he knows nothing about the darkness he can`t see. Although Tyresias is a blind person who can perceive the truth of things better than him, he warns that Oedipus himself must use his own investigation to push the facts from the dark to the light in order to understand the truth. However, as he did, it completely subverted his ignorant understanding of the world and made his struggle with vision extremely painful. It actually plunged his own world into darkness, but he left the drama and at least had a better understanding of the truth of his existence.
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