Tiresias+-+Character

__**Character Analysis of Tiresias**__

__What does the character do in the play?__

Tiresias is called to aid Oedipus in the search for Laius’ murderer. After reluctance, and not being able to lie, Tiresias is forced to tell Oedipus the truth, that he is Laius’ killer. He hints that Oedipus is the contaminant, that he killed his father, slept with his mother, and is brother to his children. He will be banished from his land, and will become blind.

This causes Oedipus to become outraged in disbelief. And when starting to look for someone else to blame other then himself, he accuses Tiresias of collaborating with Creon to overthrow his throne.

__What is the character's backstory? What other tales are told about him, either in this play or elsewhere?__

Resons for blindness:

3 Theories 	Tiresias came across Athena naked when bathing; she covered his eyes rending him blind. His mother, a nymph of Athena begged him to take it back. She could not undo the act, and therefore gave him the gift of sight. 	Athena did not herself cause him to be blind. But because, of the law of Cronos, which inflicted blindness upon any mortal who came across an immortal without permission. 	Tiresias came across two snakes copulating. He wounded the female and was then turned into a female. He then became a famous prostitute for the next 7 years. Where on the 8th, he ran into the snakes again, and this time killed the male, turning him back into a man. Zeus and Hera argued over which gender received more pleasure from sexual intercourse. They asked Tiresias after being both genders, and he agreed with Zeus. Hera then blinded him. Zeus could not undo this, and therefore gave him the ability of sight as compensation.

The Bacchae by Euripides Appears with Cadmus, founder of Thebes to warn the current king, Pentheus against denouncing Dionysus as a god. Along with Cadmus, he dresses in women's clothing to go up the mountain to worship Dionysus with the Theban women.

Antigone by Sophocles Tiresias relates the Gods’ disapproval towards Creon who wants to bury his niece, antigone alive.


 * archetypal seer
 * The blind prophet who predicts fate and can see the future. He is called on by Oedipus for advice, but when he reveals Oedipus' fate, the king gets angry, accuses him of conspiring with Creon to kill him and take his place as king, and tells him to leave.
 * Tiresias knows that Oedipus will blind himself; later in this same speech he says: "those now clear-seeing eyes / Shall then be darkened". The irony is that sight here means two different things. Oedipus is blessed with the gift of perception; he was the only man who could "see" the answer to the Sphinx's riddle. Yet he cannot see what is right before his eyes. He is blind to the truth, for all he seeks it. As a blind old man, Tiresias foreshadows Oedipus's own future, and the more Oedipus mocks his blindness, the more ironic he sounds to the audience. Tiresias is a man who understands the truth without the use of his sight; Oedipus is the opposite, a sighted man who is blind to the truth right before him. Soon Oedipus will switch roles with Tiresias, becoming a man who sees the truth and loses his sense of sight.
 * Tiresias is not the only character who uses eyes and sight as a metaphor. When Creon appears after learning of Oedipus's accusation of him, he says "said with unflinching eye was it?". This is a strange thing to say; one would expect a bold statement to be made with "unhalting voice," not "unflinching eye." Yet it continues the theme of eyes and sight.
 * conflicts with Oedipus: reluctant to reveal the truth, is not primarily concerned with Oedipus’ pride, represents democracy in the conflict against royalty.