Blinding Fate - Oedipus The King

8 Pages 2005 Words

l do it openly for all to see. That is why he can dismiss Creon’s suggestion that he listen to the report about the oracle privately first….(Johnston)” Delphi sends word that Laius’s murderer must be banished or killed to drive the desolation of the plague from Thebes. Oedipus immediately and publicly pronounces a curse on Laius’s murderer, obviously having no clue that he is that man.
Oedipus soon sends for Tiresias, so that he may acquire the identity of Laius’s killer. When the blind prophet refuses to divulge who killed Laius, Oedipus demeans him for his blindness and states his disbelief in Tiresias’s ability to prophesize. After much quarreling, Tiresias exclaims to all that Oedipus is the man he seeks. The King charges that the prophet is in Creon’s pocket, involved in a political scheme for the throne. To this charge Tiresias exclaims, “Unhappy man! Those jeers you hurl at me before long all these men will hurl at you (Sophocles line 377-378).” In Oedipus’s eyes, Tiresias’s assertion cannot be the truth and is full of contempt.
The opening scenes in the play are crucial and allow the reader to draw several important conclusions. It is determined that it would be against Oedipus’s nature to handle any part of the situation outside of the eye of the public. This is simply because he is very confident in his abilities and has no idea that he is the Laius’s murderer. As the reader later learns, even as the King begins to suspect that Tiresias’s proclamation...