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- When Oedipus finally sees the terrible truth of his life, Sophocles hammers home his metaphor by having the king stab out his own eyes. Oedipus says he does this because he can no longer look on the horrors that his unwitting actions have created.
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With blood streaming from his blind eyes, he fumes and rants at his fate, and at the infinite darkness that embraces him. He claims that though Apollo ordained his destiny, it was he alone who pierced his own eyes.
When Oedipus finally sees the terrible truth of his life, Sophocles hammers home his metaphor by having the king stab out his own eyes. Oedipus says he does this because he can no longer look on the horrors that his unwitting actions have created.
Oedipus gouges out his eyes as a punishment for his ignorance and inability to see the truth about his own life and actions. His self-inflicted blindness symbolizes his earlier...
When Oedipus does find out that he is the one who killed his father and married his mother, he stabs his eyes out so that he never again has to see the world that caused him so much pain. His literal blindness also symbolizes the metaphorical blindness, or ignorance, he possesses as he fails to see the truth of his family’s lineage.
Oedipus says he could not bear to look his father and mother in the eyes in Hades (hell), and, alive, he cannot look bear to look at the faces of his children or his countrymen. He asks the chorus to hide him, kill him, or hurl him into the sea.
When Oedipus mocks Tiresias's blindness, Tiresias predicts that Oedipus himself will soon be blind. And indeed, when Oedipus learns the full story—that he has killed his father and married his mother—he gouges out his eyes.
Jan 10, 2017 · Laius’ widow, Jocasta, is Oedipus’ own mother – and the woman Oedipus had married upon his arrival in Thebes. When this terrible truth is revealed, Jocasta hangs herself, and Oedipus puts out his own eyes and leaves Thebes, going into self-imposed exile so he can free the Thebans from the plague.
