Oedipus Rough Draft

Being ignorant of the world around oneself is worse than being blind. The truth is hard to observe if one is not thinking critically and be open minded. When one is self absorbed in his own hubris, he will lose track of values that are much more important to him, including his own prophesized fate. In Oedipus Rex, Oedipus’s “blindness” towards the decisions he made and his past added to his inevitable downfall.
One of the many aspects that Oedipus failed to perceive were the clues of his own past that he refused to analyze. Oedipus learned that Lauis was traveling with four men and was killed by one, yet he never connected the fact that he knew he killed a man of the same description. These foresights to his own identity would’ve been vital to his potential wellness, but his passion overtook reason as he failed to observe all possibilities. Not only did Tiresias give Oedipus the clues to solve his riddle, but says: “Oh yes, detected in his very heart of home: his children’s father and their brother, son and husband to his mother, bed rival to his father and assassin.” Tiresias plainly tells Oedipus his identity, and how he has sinned by marrying his mother and killing his father. However, Oedipus decides to ignore this more than plain explanation and forget about it, being determined to put the blame on Creon out of his passionate rage.
Oedipus also denied all accusations towards him, from both the messenger and Tiresias. The idea of himself being at fault immediately provoked a violent retort, in which he blamed the voice of the gods, blind or not. As Tiresias simply stated his prophet, Oedipus remarked with: “ I vent it all on you. Yes, you, you planned this thing, and I suspect you of the very murder even, all but the actual stroke.” Here he denied Tiresias’s accusation and put it back in the prophet’s fate. His ignorance against the truth, which he refused to analyze led to the further suffering of the people of Thebes. Despite his prophesized fate, he