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

Sight Versus Insight in Oedipus the King Anyone who has common sense leave remember that the bewilderments of the eye be of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the perch or from going into the weightlessness,which is true of the minds eye, quite as much as the bodily eye and he who remembers this when he light upons anyone whose vision is perplexed and weak, pull up stakes not be too ready to laugh he will ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter life, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzle by excess light. And he will count the another(prenominal) one dexterous in his condition and state of being, and he will pity the other (Plato, The Republic) The paradoxical coexistence of blindness and insight is portrayed in Sophocles Oedipus the King, in which Oedipus experiences a devastating yet redeeming realization that the vision he possesses is nix but false pri de and blindness. Suffering a complete reversal, Oedipus all the same maintains the fortitude to actively develop and endure 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 be good, your unharmed body will be full of light. But if your eyes are wondering(a), 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. hot York Pantheon Books, 1961. Ignatius Holy Bible. Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition. San Francisco Ignatius Press, 1966. Knox, Bernard. Sophocles. The Three Theban Plays. Trans. Robert Fagles. New York Penguin, 1984. Regal, Charles. Oedipus 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, throng 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. second ed. London Penguin, 1987.