to worry about it, don’t get worked up, and to just forget what you were told. Oedipus cannot forget what the oracle has said and goes on to pursue the case.Through the course of the play Oedipus is the detective, the judge, and the jury. He investigates, decides a verdict, and carries out his own punishment. When Tiresias arrives at Thebes Oedipus questions him looking for answers. Tiresias is a blind man, who ironically can see the future and truths of people’s lives. It is Tiresias who is the first person to tell Oedipus that he has killed his own father. He tells Oedipus “you do not see the evil in which you live.” Oedipus doubts Tiresias’ ability to see the truths because of his physical blindness and states, “ You are blind, your ears and mind as well as eyes.” Tiresias has a very different type of sight than that of Oedipus. Tiresias can see the truth even while blinded, whereas Oedipus can physically see but he is blinded by his own shortsightedness. Jocasta shows mental blindness when she fails to realize that the prophecy once told to her has come true. She ignores the signs that prove the prophecies true, because she doesn’t want to see them. When Jocasta eyes are finally opened to the truth, she returns to the house and shortly thereafter kills herself. She does this because she can’t believe that she had been so blind to see that the prophecies were true. She does not want to live with the double fruit of her marriage, a husband by her husband and children by her child.Ironically at the beginning of the play Oedipus is lacking the mental ability to see, but when he finally does see the truth, he physically blinds himself. “I know that you are deathly sick; and yet, sick as you are, not one is as sick as I.” He takes responsibility for blinding himself saying he can’t bear to see the horror everywhere in his actions. It is ironic that in...
