Blindness In Oedipus Rex Essay

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Blindness is applied frequently in the story Oedipus Rex and is used in many different ways. Sophocles uses blindness in a literal sense and a figurative sense, and each type of blindness is used in a different way. Literal blindness is used through people who are actually blind, while figurative blindness is used by characters who can literally see, but they are blind to the world around them. A group of people in real life who had figurative blindness were the citizens of Nazi Germany. The main role of blindness in Oedipus Rex was that even if you can literally see, you may be blind to your surroundings and that even if you are physically blind, you may be able to see things that others who can see may miss. Sophocles uses blindness often …show more content…
They are blind because even though Adolf Hitler was doing all of these horrible things for really no reason, Germany still followed him. This makes them blind because they could not see the hideous things Hitler was doing behind the curtain of propaganda that Hitler had put up. Most of Germany did not know that the Holocaust was even going on at the time, because Hitler covered everything up using propaganda. Propagandists told the public of national unity and a utopian future without the Jews. Germany, however, knew nothing of the plan to exterminate the Jews. As an example of this, there was even one booklet that said “in occupied Poland, German authorities had put Jews to work, built clean hospitals, set up soup kitchens for Jews, and provided them with newspapers and vocational training.” (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, pg 1). All of this propaganda made the German citizens blind to the real world. The citizens of Nazi Germany are a group of people who are figuratively blind. The main role of blindness in Oedipus Rex was that actually blind people may see things that other people who can see may miss, and that people who can actually see may be blind to their surroundings. This shows up frequently in the play and also in real life. One big example of a group of people who were figuratively blind are the citizens of Nazi Germany. Blindness is very important
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