Oedipus Rex and Plato’s Allegory of the Cave: The Illusion of Reality Essay

Sophocles was cognize for his emphasis on the individuals uncompromising wait for fairness, particularly in Oedipus Rex. In Platos Allegory of the Cave, he, alike to Sophocles, illustrates globes pursuit of trueness and what that means. Plato suggests that truth is subjective to individu aloney man. but what is truer? What is conjury and what is populace? Just because something is joke for one man does non halt it falsification for the other. To them, I said, the truth would be re unanimousy nonhing but the shadows of the images (Plato). The news report of Oedipus offers a lot of examples of the philosophy that Plato poses in his dialogue.In both(prenominal) whole kit and boodle, the men commencement ceremony had to realize their ignorance to begin with they could begin to strike k instantlyledge and true understanding of the complexities of the t final stageer condition Oedipus in a literal sense and the man in the weaken in a more(prenominal) theoretical s ense. Oedipus discovers, after piercing out his affection, that he has finally arrived at the truth of his conduct and that he now has a obligation to shargon his story with his children, extended family, and citizens. And in Platos Allegory of the Cave, the prisoners difficulty discovering the truth lies in his fateful restricted behavior within the cave.And when he escapes, he feels compelled to en freshen others with the newly strand truth he has stumbled upon. And when he remembered his octogenarian habitation, and the wisdom of the cave and his fellow prisoners, do you not suppose that he would wish himself on the charge and pity them? (Plato) Oedipus Rex and Platos Allegory of the Cave are industrial plant about truth and moodyhood, about push- shoot down list and projection screenness, about fresh and Stygianness all of which represent the great divide amidst illusion and naive realism. Oedipus is blinded by the illusion that he has fled his fate, having over come the prophecy.He thinks he has escaped his parents, and this illusion is his reality. Throughout the tinker, Oedipus utters jonah upon curse onto himself without knowing because he refuses to hug drug over reality of the harsh truth before him. The contrast amid what is truth and what is falsehood is a prominent theme throughout both classical works. Oedipus is on the search for truth, no matter what the cost. He finds truth to be a costy cause, no matter what harsh realities it may arrangement them. The emphasis on truth is suck inn with more clarity in the dialogue between Oedipus and Teiresias.Oedipus rages at Teiresias for speaking out against him by dictating Oedipus fate. Oedipus yells, Can you possibly think you set about some way of going free, after such insolence? Then Teiresias replies, I ache gone free. It is the truth that sustains me. Oedipus retaliates, It seems you privy go on mouthing like this forever. Teiresias hence concludes by claiming, I potentiometer if thither is power in truth (Sophocles 889-890) Teiresias, a blind man, takes consolation in the truth, scorn the harshness of the reality. Oedipus, though initially furious at this proposition, then starts to understand its wideness and power.This situation is very similar to what is seen in Platos work. The prisoner is bound by the illusion of his false sense of puff of air and certification. When he is released and emerges from the cave, he is overcome by the power of the fainthearted of the sun. The glare entrust distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his origin state he had seen the shadows Will he not fancy that the shadows which he at once saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him? (Plato) Platos proposition of mans reaction to new and infract truths, despite the harshness, almost perfectly parallels Oedipus reaction.And even the satire of when the prisoners handle their fellow inmate for being delusio nal in his lack of depression in the realities of the shadows parallel the relationship between Oedipus and Teiresias. Oedipus, after being told the reality by Teiresias says, You child of endless night You cannot harm me or any other man who sees the sun (890 lines 156-157) Oedipus is blinded by his illusions and information of what is reality. There is blatant irony in the contrast of sight and blindness in Sophocles play. Oedipus, while being able to physically see, is indeed blinded to reality.Teiresias, who is physically blind, sees the reality and accepts it and attempts to spread that reality to Oedipus who is obstinate to see. Teiresias rebukes Oedipus in his mockery saying, You call me un opinion, if only you could see the nature of your own feelings Listen to me. You mock my blindness, do you? But I say that you, with both your eyes, are blind. You cannot see the miserableness of your life (Sophocles 890-891). This sight of the reality, the truth, is represented in Pl atos piece by the rising out of the cave into the charitable being.Obtaining sight happens, as Plato puts it, with the minds eye and the visible eye. But this conversion from being blind to being able to see does not happen to everyone and not very easily. Plato argues that the energy of sight is in the soul already, the eyes of the mind just need to turn from darkness to silly in hallow to see the man. the instrument of knowledge can only by the movement of the whole soul be turned from the human of becoming into that of being, and of learn by degrees to melt the sight of being, and of the brightest and best of being, or in other words, of the good (Plato).The transition from blindness to sight, darkness into well-heeled, is not a debauched or easy process. It is harsh and requires object and a strong, intellectual mind. After Oedipus is brought into the light of reality, he longs for the time he was not burdened with the harshness and misery reality brings he wants to return to darkness, returning to the security of his illusion. If I could prevail stifled my hearing at its source, I would have provoke it and made all this body a tight cell of misery, blank to light and sound so I should have been safe in a dark agony beyond all reminiscence (lines 159-163).The darkness of the cave and the power of the light outside of it is the most vivid exhibit painted by Plato in his allegory. He then continues, taking the allegory to the undermentioned level the prison-house cave is the world of sight, the light of the inflame of the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you fork up the journey upwards to be the wage hike of the soul into the intellectual world tally to my poor belief (Plato) Plato is saying that the substantial world we live in is not the repleteest reality.We live in a world that is but shadows of the fuller reality we cannot see. In the context of Platos world, Oedipus, then, at the end of the play is still stuck in th e near level of illusion. That is why he is so depressed. He has lost all of his stifling pleasures that Plato warns humanity about, and Oedipus is thus left feeling hopeless and lost in darkness. The complexity of these two works is enormous and poses questions which seem almost unanswerable. Yet they complement each other very well, as you would search abandoned their mutual classical background.They both address the same characteristics of life and human nature truth and falsehood, sight and blindness, and light and darkness, all tied together by a theme of the seemingly congress divide of illusion and reality. Both works put an emphasis on the wideness of truth and its always worth it, no matter what the cost. There are different types of sight bodily and mental. It seems that in order to have stronger mental sight, it is better to be bodily blind as seen with Oedipus and Teiresias.Escaping from the darkness into the light is escaping the illusions that the world and you yourself have created. The individual, according to Plato, must have his eye fixed, so that he may, in the world of knowledge, see the idea of good, which is seen only with bowel movement and with a wisdom which more than anything else contains a divine element which always corpse Sophocles and Plato both see there is something absentminded in the reality of our world.There has to be more to this reality, we, therefore, must be aliment illusory lives and we need to emerge from the cave. If we do not, we are confined to a life lacking of meaning, true knowledge, and purpose. Thus the fork out we have of Oedipus at the end of the play stuck in a life which is full of falsehood, blindness, darkness, and is an illusion? Alas for the seed of men. What government note shall I give these generations that breathe on the void and are void and go and do not exist?Who bears more weight of joy than mass of sunshine shifting in images, or who shall make his thought stay on that down time drifts away? Your splendor is all fallen O Oedipus, most purplish one The great door that expelled you to the light gave at night ah, gave night to your idealisation as to the father, to the fathering son. All unders in additiond too late For I weep the worlds outcast. I was blind, and now I can tell why asleep, for you had given ease of breath to Thebes, while the false years went by. (911-13 lines 1-9 32-36 49-53)