Blindness and Sight - Sight Versus Insight in Oedipus the King (Oedipus

Sight Versus Insight in Oedipus the King Anyone who has common sense pass on remember that the bewilderments of the nerve centre are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light,which is true of the minds eye, sooner as much as the bodily eye and he who remembers this when he sees anyone whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too form to laugh he will ask whether that soul of man has cause out of the brighter life, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having moody from phantasm to the day is dazzled by excess light. And he will forecast the other one happy in his condition and state of being, and he will pity the other (Plato, The Republic) The paradoxical coexistence of blindness and insight is visualized in Sophocles Oedipus the King, in which Oedipus experiences a devastating yet redeeming credit that the vision he possesses is nothing but false pride and blindness. ache a c omplete reversal, Oedipus nevertheless maintains the fortitude to actively develop and wear off intense suffering in order to attain extraordinary insight deliberately grasping the kairos, Oedipus experiences a double bewilderment of the eye - both a physical blindness and, more ignificantly, a spiritual enlightenment, resulting from his having turned from darkness to the day to be dazzled by excess light (Plato, The Republic). The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be replete of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness (Matthew 622-23). Oedipus eyes are bad and the dayli... ...ham University Press of America, Inc 1996. Hamilton, Edith The Collected Dialogues of Plato , Eds. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, 526-574. New York Pantheon takes, 1961. Ignatius Blessed Bible. Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition. San Francisco Ign atius Press, 1966. Knox, Bernard. Sophocles. The Three Theban Plays. Trans. Robert Fagles. New York Penguin, 1984. Regal, Charles. Oedipus genus Tyrannus Tragic Heroism and the Limits of Knowledge. New York Twayne, 1993. Sophocles. Oedipus the King Classics in World Literature. Ed by Wood, Kerry et. Al. Glenview, IL Scott-Foresman, 1989. Marra, James L., Zelnick, Stephen C., and Mattson, Mark T. IH 51 Source Book Plato, The Republic, pp. 77-106. Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, Dubuque, Iowa, 1998. Plato. The Republic. Trans. Desmond Lee. 1955. 2nd ed. London Penguin, 1987.