Oedipus the King was written during the ancient Greek times. During this time, the people believed that the god's controlled everything. The god's had set a dark and painful path for Oedipus. He was destined to murder his father and marry his mother. Thus, as soon as he was born his feet were nailed together and he was given to a shepherd to be left on Kithairon to die. Unfortunately, he did not die; instead he ended up being adopted by King Polybus. Sophocles wrote this play in order to show how the gods were cruel and also how truth can affect a person or the people around you. Sophocles successfully conveyed this throughout the play by using mystery and ignorance of characters. .
We are introduced to King Oedipus from the beginning where he is addressing his people on the current situation of Thebes. This city has been cursed by the Gods because Oedipus has unknowingly murdered his father and married his mother. From the start, Sophocles has introduced mystery as to how Oedipus survived and managed to come back to Thebes. Nevertheless Thebes has been cursed by the gods. The only way Thebes could be helped according to the Priest was through the wisdom of the blind prophet Teiresias. Thus, when Teiresias was called he refused to tell Oedipus the truth. The reasons for this could be because he didn't want to get involved or that he was not allowed to say the truth. This angered Oedipus and he called the prophet blind. "The truth is strong, but not your truth. You have no truth. You"re blind. Blind in your eyes. Blind in your ears. Blind in your mind." This is ironic because it is Oedipus who was actually blind of the truth. Nevertheless, the prophet got angry and told Oedipus that he was the killer of his father and that he had married his mother and had children with her. Oedipus got furious by this accusation and started blaming both the prophet and Kreon for conspiring against him.