He does not know his true parents, marries his mother, and kills his father because of this blindness. After gaining sight of 'truth,' he gouges his eyes, becoming physically blind. Jocasta, on her part, knows the truth but chooses to 'blind' herself towards the same; she kills herself as a result.
Oedipus blinds himself after learning that he inadvertently murdered his father and slept with his mother. He is so appalled by this revelation that he feels the need to physically punish himself. He blinds himself because he cannot handle the truth of his actions.
At the climax of the play, Jocasta is so overwhelmed by the horror of having had sex with her own son that she commits suicide, hanging herself over their marriage bed. This is a Sophoclean innovation; in earlier versions of the myth she either stabs herself to death or survives the shock and lives on.
Because he felt overwhelming amounts of shame at his metaphorical blindness to the truth, he literally blinds himself. Jocasta was first his mother and later his wife, and he did not want to have to see his mother-wife now.
Let's learn about the disease that robbed Jocasta Cameron of her eyesight: Glaucoma. Yep, that's the one. Glaucoma (glaw-koh-muh), is a word derived from the Greek glaukommatos meaning “gray-eyed.”
Non-book readers may be wondering how and why Jocasta is blind. On the show, the affliction is never addressed. In the book, it comes up for Claire a few times. First off, it takes everyone a while to realize that Jocasta can't see.
He finally hurled himself at the bedroom door and burst through it, where he saw Jocasta hanging from a noose. Seeing this, Oedipus sobbed and embraced Jocasta. He then took the gold pins that held her robes and, with them, stabbed out his eyes.
He did not kill himself because he could not have faced his father and his mother in the realms of death. He had robbed himself of his eye-sight, and he would have liked to deprive himself of his power of hearing also.
Oedipus blinds himself as a symbol of self-realization and insight. It is an irony because he chooses to be physically blind after seeing everything he has done. He realizes that he was figuratively blind throughout the play, therefore he punishes himself by blinding himself.
Jocasta handed the newborn infant over to Laius. Jocasta or Laius pierced and pinned the infant's ankles together. Laius instructed his chief shepherd, Menoetes (not to be confused with Menoetes, the underworld spirit) a slave who had been born in the palace, to expose the infant on Mount Cithaeron and leave it to die.
Surprise overwhelmed Oedipus, for the messenger told him that she was not his mother. He explained that he was given the baby many years ago by a Theban shepherd. Jocasta then realized that Oedipus was her son.
Jocasta realizes the truth—that Oedipus is her son as well as her husband—and tells Oedipus to stop the interrogations. He doesn't listen, and an eyewitness, the Herdsman who rescued him when he was an infant, confirms that he was Laius and Jocasta's child, and that Oedipus killed Laius.
In this quote, Oedipus is referring to the murderer; he declares that once found, the murderer must be banished. This is dramatic irony because although we know Oedipus murdered King Laius, Oedipus doesn't, which means he also doesn't realize he's banishing himself.
Jocasta now realizes that Oedipus is the baby she and Laius abandoned, and that the prophecy has come true. She begs Oedipus to stop his inquiry, but he refuses, and she runs into the palace screaming.
Oedipus fits this precisely, for his basic flaw is his lack of knowledge about his own identity. Moreover, no amount of foresight or preemptive action could remedy Oedipus' hamartia; unlike other tragic heroes, Oedipus bears no responsibility for his flaw.
Later, when the truth became known, Jocasta committed suicide, and Oedipus (according to another version), after blinding himself, went into exile, accompanied by Antigone and Ismene, leaving his brother-in-law Creon as regent.
He is blind to the fact that Polybus and Merope are not his natural parents, Jocasta is both his wife and his mother, and the murderer he is searching for is he. Sophocles uses the words of the blind prophet to emphasis Oedipus's lack of foresight: "You called me blind.
Only when Oedipus threatens violence does the shepherd reveal that long ago he disobeyed his orders and saved the baby out of pity. And, finally, he admits that the baby was the son of Laius and Jocasta. With this news, Oedipus realizes that he has murdered his father and married his mother.
His bride was the queen, Jocasta. Several years later, after they had four children, plagues began to destroy the people of Thebes. Oedipus strove to discover the reason. A prophecy gave him a hint, that the murderer of the former king, Laius, was living unpunished in Thebes.
Oedipus was crowned king he didn't marry into power. Oedipus was probably like 16 years younger than his mother.
Jocasta, finally realizing Oedipus' true identity, entreats him to abandon his search for Laius' murderer. Oedipus misunderstands the motivation of her pleas, thinking that she was ashamed of him because he might have been the son of a slave. She then goes into the palace where she hangs herself.
Relationships. Jocasta Cameron: Ulysses had a romantic relationship with Jocasta for about twenty years, beginning long before her husband, Hector Cameron, had died.
Jocasta Timeline and Summary
Jocasta assures Oedipus that prophecies are consistently false and cites the example that her first husband, Laius, was prophesized to be killed by his own son, but that his son was killed as a baby.