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

Truth and Teiresias in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and Al-Hakim's King Oedipus      Ã‚   In both "Oedipus Rex" and "King Oedipus," Teiresias is defined by his relationship to the truth: in Sophocles' play as a courier, in Tawfiq Al-Hakim's 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 modern Teiresias is actively engaged in creating, shaping, the truth out of a supposed spiritual vacuum. These differing roles place both characters at a certain distance from their actions and sense of responsibility. Based, to a great extent, on this proximity, each Teiresias develops a radically different concept of the truth. Though the characters themselves are in many ways philosophical opposites, the function Teiresias serves in each play is not at all dissimilar. A sense of the truth as a source of destruction as well as possible redemption is ultimately reinforced by the presence of Teiresias in each play.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Oedipus accuses Teiresias in each play of withholding critical information. Both characters make similar decisions to attempt to withdraw themselves from the situation. Their motives, however, are distinctly different. Understanding these motives points paradoxically toward the individual fundamental 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 powerless to change it. Teiresias does not own 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 insight may well be an impossible task. In our attempt we may always hear the laughter that plagues Al-Hakim's 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.   Ã‚      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.