Blog #10-Oedipus

Oedipus the king is a great tragic drama, well thought out and interesting. This is portrayed in a form to be acted out in a play but seemed more like a drama that was slowly (very much so) uncovering the truth about what Oedipus was seeking and finally about himself. Throughout the story Oedipus was in great haste to uncover the true murder of the previous king before him, King Laios. he proposed that the murderer will be shunned and would be banished from the city so that the plague that was placed by the Gods would vanish. Oedipus had left his original home to make sure the prophecy that he would kill his father (who was actually his adoptive father) would not come true. By leaving he actually fulfilled the prophecy because he did end up killing his father (his father by blood relations), marrying his own mother unknowingly and then incestually conceiving children from that marriage. Finally towards the last 5 pages of the play, Oedipus discovers it was he who murdered his father, and commensed the prophecy to follow through with itself. Oedipus blinded himself in the end because he unknowingly married his own mother. His mother committed suicide because of the newly found information, knowing that she had an incestual relationship with her son forced her to take her own life.
Oedipus blinded himself with her brooches because he felt it was appropriate, he didnt want to be able to literally see his parents in the afterlife. Blinding himself can be depicted as his unknowingness. Oedipus was so ignorant of his own history that it led him to blame his wife/mothers brother and tried to banish him, even though getting the information that he was getting from the messangers and the prophets didnt relay the conclusion well enough to allow him to think the murder and crime was of his own doing. Not knowing the Truth about his existence was Oedipus' blindness. Blindness is depicted as being in the dark and not knowing. But with a man of honor, he banished himself for the horrible crime he committed and left his kingdom blidn in darkness to forage the rest of his miserable life alone so that the Gods may pity the city he had plagued.