Truth and Teiresias in Sophocles Oedipus Rex and Al-Hakims King Oedip

loyalty and Teiresias in Sophocles Oedipus Rex and Al-Hakims King Oedipus In both Oedipus Rex and King Oedipus, Teiresias is defined by his relationship to the fairness in Sophocles play as a courier, in Tawfiq Al-Hakims as a manufacturer. Sophocles Teiresias is a conduit, a vessel through which the truth of a future created by the gods can be revealed, while the sophisticated Teiresias is actively engaged in creating, shaping, the truth out of a supposed(p) spiritual vacuum. These differing roles place both characters at a certain exceed from their actions and sense of responsibility. Based, to a great extent, on this proximity, each(prenominal) Teiresias develops a radically different concept of the truth. Though the characters themselves are in many ship canal philosophical opposites, the function Teiresias serves in each play is not at all dissimilar. A sense of the truth as a reference book of destruction as well as possible redemption is lastly reinforced by the presenc e of Teiresias in each play. Oedipus accuses Teiresias in each play of withholding critical information. Both characters make similar decisions to exploit to withdraw themselves from the situation. Their motives, however, are distinctly different. Understanding these motives points paradoxically toward the individual of import differences between characters as well as their eventual thematic similarities. Sophocles Teiresias is a reluctant prophet. He is in awe of the truth because he is uneffective to change it. Teiresias does not profess the truth it was never his to possess. Instead, he exists as a passive agent, an intermediary, between present and future, gods and humanity. Because the truth is brutal, cruel, and possibly sometimes excessive and unjust even... ...refers, instead to vision on a more figurative level. Sophocles speaks to this kind of blindness when Teiresias states, You whose vision is straight shall be blind (ln 419, p.127). Achieving this level of insig ht may well be an impossible task. In our attempt we may always hear the gag that plagues Al-Hakims Teiresias, mocking laughter that has dropped from heaven since the beginning creation (124). Understanding the relationship of Teiresias in each play to the truth (its conveyance, its creation), may help us to determine our own proximity to this same elusive and dangerous goal, the truth. Works Cited Al-Hakim, Tawfiq. Plays, Prefaces and Postscripts of Tawfiq Al-Hakim. Trans. W.M. Hutchins. Washington, D.C. Three Continents Press, 1981. Sophocles. Oedipus Rex. Rpt. in Ten Greek Plays. Ed. L.R. Lind, Boston Houghton Mifflin, 1957.