Oedipus

In Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex the audience knows more than the characters, while in Oedipus at Colonus the audience know almost nothing at all, neither does anyone else. Oedipus himself is blind in Oedipus at Colonus (unlike the way he is in Oedipus Rex) and the audience is blind as well to the course of events in the play. We have difficulty seeing and understanding what’s happening throughout Oedipus at Colonus, there’s an enigma within it, a puzzle that none can solve. Oedipus has a humility and pride in himself that neither the audience nor any of the characters can understand. Like this humility and pride, the two plays are paradoxical. One leaving us content with full explanation of events, the other leaving us blind, shrouded in mystery.
Oedipus Rex focuses on sight and seeing. Not only does the audience know what’s happening, so does almost everyone except for Oedipus. “To twit me with my blindness--thou hast eyes, yet see'st not in what misery thou art fallen, nor ...