ABSTRACT
Part One of the book commenced with a detailed description of the legend of Oedipus, telling how he unwittingly came to kill his father and marry his mother, just as the oracle had foretold before his birth. I take my reading of the legend from The Three Theban Plays (Fagles, 1984), and I find it interesting that they highlight the very concept that Steiner (1985, pp. 161–172) develops centuries later in his paper, “Turning a blind eye: the cover up for Oedipus”. I find it fascinating that individuals who grow up to suffer an unresolved Oedipus complex so frequently persist in displaying an arrogance that is exemplified in the way they almost purposefully fail to notice the ethical and moral dilemmas to which they find themselves inexplicably drawn. It is as if they have a blind spot, or one could alternatively describe them as horses donning blinkers, unable to see beyond the limited vision thus available to them. This metaphor of the blinkers is apt, however, because they seem to consciously decide to actually put on such blinkers.
