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I got reminded of what truly matters when making art, the excitement and curiosity of expressing through a medium something that touches us; and processing why it does through making art from it. It is an endless exploration of oneself through the surrounding environment, and inversely (exploration of the environment through oneself)

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what mess you made.

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A Befitting Blindness

The passage of the epic poem The Odyssey by Homer on the Cyclopes’ island (Homer, 9) and the tragedy of Sophocles, King Oedipus, both end with the blinding of Polyphemus and Oedipus respectively. The Odyssey was originally part of the oral tradition and King Oedipus was meant to be experienced in a theatre. Odysseus narrates how Polyphemus — who scorns the godly laws, keeps his guests captive, and pitilessly eats Odysseus’ companions two by two — is finally defeated by Odysseus’ ruses. Oedipus, a drastically different character, is a fatherly figure for the people of Thebes, who chose him as king after he defeated the Sphinx. While looking for the truth behind the curse that is currently on Thebes, he at lengths learns that he himself is its cause. He killed his father and married his mother just as the oracle given to King Laius foretold. Even though Polyphemus and Oedipus are opposite characters in their moral values and self-awareness, the narration of their respective blinding, through the description of suffering and the complex role of pity, leads to a physical blindness that acts as a metaphorical and appropriate punishment for the characters’ sin. I will discuss how this is achieved through a sensory description of suffering, through the presence or removal of pity according to the self-awareness of the characters and according to their acknowledgement of a higher moral order determined by the gods.

The graphic vocabulary used to describe Polyphemus’ blinding physically conveys his suffering to us. Homer, through Odysseus’ narration, uses words and images that convey suffering through all senses. “[S]izzled” (394) and “blubbered” (397) solicits our hearing. “Boiled”(388), “burning” (389) and “singed” (389) draw a picture of flesh transforming to burnt meat and evoke its nauseating smell. It gives the reader/listeners the illusion of truly witnessing, hearing and smelling the spectacle of the flesh burning. “Frantically” (398) shows how pain almost carries Polyphemus to a sense of madness.

However intensely Polyphemus’ suffering is described, Odysseus impedes any pity for his upcoming physical suffering to be felt. Instead, he insists on the pitifulness of his and his companions’ position by describing in a gruesome way how Polyphemus, in “pitiless spirit” (287), “slapped them […] against the ground, and the brains ran all over the floor, soaking the ground” (289-291). This description plunges the audience into the sudden horror of the scene. Then, as Polyphemus falls asleep and right before Odysseus’ attack, we are reminded of his monstrosity: “the wine gurgled up from his [Polyphemus’] gullet with gobs of human meat” (373-374). The only sense of pity we feel for Polyphemus comes from reported speech, when he affectionately speaks to his ram: “My dear old ram” (447), “Perhaps you are grieving / for your master’s eye” (452-453). The ram is soon after sacrificed by Odysseus (550-552).

When punishing Polyphemus, Odysseus sees himself as an agent of the gods’ will: “Zeus and the rest of gods have punished you” (479). However, that is not how Polyphemus sees it; for him, Odysseus is a “niddering” (515) and “feeble” (515) man. Even after his blinding, he shows no understanding or respect for the gods nor recognize that their will has been accomplished through Odysseus. His disdain is marked by the irony with which he treats the guest rule after having been told that Odysseus’ name is “Nobody”: “Then I will eat Nobody after his friends, and the others / I will eat first, and that shall be my guest present to you” (369-70). For a moment, it seems that Polyphemus may be capable of recognizing his wrongdoings, though it may be another trap: “So come here, Odysseus, let me give you a guest gift / and urge the glorious shaker of earth to grant you conveyance home” (517-519).

In The Odyssey, fate is present in the form of a narrative foreshadowing and of a prophecy. First, the passage being narrated by Odysseus after the facts, the beginning of his narrative is tinted with the knowledge of Polyphemus’ future actions. From their arrival on the island, Odysseus wonders “wether they [the Cyclopes] are savage and violent, and without justice, / or hospitable to strangers and with minds that are godly” (175-176) and Polyphemus is described as “a monster of a man” (187) and his mind as “lawless” (189). Secondly, the clue that a higher force is at stake is given by a “prophecy spoken of old” (507) told to Polyphemus by “a prophet, Telemos” (508-09). The existence of this prophecy, announced at the end of the story, propels the significance of the blinding from an isolated occurrence to being part of the higher order dictated by the gods.

Odysseus invokes “Zeus the guest god” (270) to bend Polyphemus to a hospitable disposition. Yet Polyphemus disregards the guest rule and is metaphorically blind to his being under the gods’ laws. He thinks of himself as being above them and having complete freedom to act as he wishes: “The Cyclopes do not concern themselves over Zeus of the aegis, / nor any of the rest of the blessed gods” (275-276). He is additionally guilty of hubris when he adds: “since we are far better / than they” (276-277). His physical blindness can therefore be seen as an appropriate punishment for his intentional blindness to moral rules. His punishment is also appropriate as Polyphemus values physical strength above all and cannot comprehend that a mere “little man” (515) can defeat him, being unable to discern the value of intelligence and ruse. His vision did not allow him to see how dangerous an opponent Odysseus could be. Ironically, at the only time when his sight would have served him, blindness is what prevents Polyphemus from catching Odysseus and his men in their ruse to escape the cave.

The scene of Oedipus’ blinding (Sophocles 61), reported by the Attendant, is one of madness and violence and his suffering is a dual one that attacks him both physically and morally. He is “[t]wice-tormented; in the spirit, as in the flesh” (63). The abundant flowing of blood (“whole cascade” (61), “drenching” (61), “ran down” (61), “cataracts” (61)) echoes the flow of pain that is submerging him. “Snatched out” (61) and “thrusts”(61) communicates the violence of his movements. “Wild tune” (61) adds the sense of hearing and evokes the madness of moral and physical agony.

In King Oedipus, the role of pity is a complex one, as the offender and the sufferer are one and the same. As such, we are torn between those “horrible acts” (59) and this “poor sufferer” (61). Oedipus’ actions afflict his mother/wife, his children, and the whole population of Thebes. The scene preceding Oedipus’ blinding and narrated by the same Attendant is the suicide of Jocasta, “[a] strangled woman swinging before our eyes” (61), which reminds us that the consequence of his crime makes Oedipus’ suffering a justified one, however undeserved. The setting of the tragedy in Thebes implies that all the characters share a bond which makes the pity they feel for Oedipus tangible.

Oedipus’ descent from moral superiority to sin leads him to execute his own punishment. He thus shows his high level of moral conscience and his recognition of a sin so intolerable that it leads him to mutilate himself. He acknowledges that his punishment is, through his hand, a godly one: “Apollo / Has laid his agony upon me; / Not by his hand; I did it.” (62) Apollo, the god of prophecy and self knowledge, represents/announces the ineluctable resolution of the tragedy and the moral position of Oedipus. The “I did it” (62) is probably a comfort for Oedipus: through his faults, his self-awareness and self-punishment allows him to hold on to one of the last virtues he can claim: his integrity. By fulfilling his promise to punish the person responsible for the plague affecting Thebes, he honors his dedication to truth, which is asserted throughout the plot. By being the hand of God, he can remain part of the moral order he (unknowingly) slighted.

In King Oedipus, the prophecy told to King Laius has a central role. The reiteration of that prophecy to Oedipus is what motivates his flight from Corinth and therefore his arrival in Thebes. The answer that Oedipus is looking for in the beginning of the play is told to him by Teiresias when he is called to the throne: “You are the cursed polluter of this land” (35). Yet Oedipus, too confident of his virtue, angrily dismisses him.

Throughout the play, Oedipus is blind to the truth of his birth and of his sin. He eagerly searches for the truth yet positively rejects the idea of himself being in the wrong. The metaphor of sight for knowledge is pervasive in the tragedy and the audience already knows the outcome of Oedipus’ hunt for truth and can fully appreciate the irony and pathos of his position. Oedipus, when he had the sense of sight, could not see his sinfulness which, in light of the knowledge of his crime, makes the idea of physical sight unbearable to him: “How could I meet my father beyond the grave / With seeing eyes; or my unhappy mother” (63). Blindness is therefore the most appropriate chastisement — one that is worse than death, “[a]s no mere death could pay for [it]” (63) — and a constant reminder of his guilt.

Thus, the detailed description of Polyphemus and Odysseus’ suffering solicits various senses and leads the listeners to almost share in it, although Polyphemus’ pain is described as purely physical while Oedipus is tortured both physically and mentally. Oedipus’ character, even in the light of the horror of his sin, still leaves space for the people of Thebes, personified in the Attendant and the Chorus, to pity him. Polyphemus, on the contrary, is described in a way that ensures no pity can be felt for him. They both descend from their moral high ground to the retribution of their sin, though their fall contrasts in the level of awareness they have of their faults. Polyphemus stays ignorant of his faults even after his blinding, while the awareness of Oedipus' guilt is the motive of his self-blinding. In both texts, the concept of deserving punishment leaves space for reflexion. In showing affection for the ram, Polyphemus’ character opens up to a possible softer interpretation — one of a clueless savage not taught in the moral rules obeyed by humans. Oedipus is a more obvious underserving sufferer, yet he is not a perfect character either: he is self-confident, too quick to blame others and to take offense. The presence of a prophecy in both texts imbues the blindings with a higher moral meaning. Polyphemus did not fear the accomplishment of the prophecy but rather was looking forward to meet his opponent while in King Oedipus, the prophecy is the core force that motivates the actions of Oedipus’ parents and of himself. In the end, the prophecies are fulfilled, which for Polyphemus means to be blinded by Odysseus, and for Oedipus, to kill his father and marry his mother. In both cases, their blindings is the physical consequence of their metaphorical blindness, the origin of their sin.

Works cited

Homer. The Odyssey. Translated by Richmond Lattimore. 1967. Perennial-Harper, 1991.

Sophocles. “King Oedipus.” The Theban Plays. Trans. E. F. Watling. 1947. London: Penguin Classics, 1947.

#the odyssey #king of soph #oedipus

When no truth can be seized

I fall silent in sad bliss

Être femme me donne la douceur d’épancher ma douleur dans l’ombre