At first when I started thinking about how Oedipus Rex connected to my blog questions I thought it might be difficult to connect them. Oedipus does not create his own illusion. Then I realized that Oedipus was living an illusion that was not created by him. It was created by Fate.

This opens up a whole new side to my questions that I never thought about before. Oedipus doesn’t know that he killed his father and married his mother, at the beginning of this play. So in a way he is living in a skewed reality and he is not aware of this. When he discovers that he did commit those crimes he becomes a different man. He struggles to deal with the facts, or reality. There was a consequence for him when his world shifted from illusion to reality.

I like the idea that maybe Fate creates our illusions. Do we have control over what illusions we live? Teiresias says to Oedipus, “Bear your own fate, and I’ll bear mine. It is better so: trust what I say” (Lines 308-309). His advice is to keep living his illusion because it is better for Oedipus. Maybe it is better to not know whether you are living an illusion. Teiresias also says, “You mock my blindness, do you? But I say that you, with both your eyes, are blind: you can not see the wretchedness of your life…” (Lines 399-400). This also makes me wonder if a “dream world” is better to live in than reality.

This was my favorite image I found of Oedipus because it is a mask. A mask is a symbol that is used a lot to illustrate that there is depth to a character and maybe there is something they are trying to hide. The bandages over where the eyes would be and the blood were really powerful. The face behind the mask (reality) still affects the mask (the illusion). The blood is on the mask now, forever ruining the mask and that illusion. (Photo Credit - http://aplitandcomp.wikidot.com/oedipus-rex)