In most famous Greek literature, a great hero usually saves the day. However, in the story of Oedipus, the good man with a minor flaw goes through great pain. This pain in the play Oedipus Rex is the central point of the entire play. Almost every aspect of the play builds to and foreshadows Oedipus' fall from power and entry into pain. Sophocles, in his tragedy Oedipus the King, creates a mood of dramatic irony by using the dualities of sight and blindness, light and darkness. This dramatic irony highlights Oedipus' hamartia, and in doing so, Sophocles reinforces his message that arrogance is wrong. In order to understand much of the foreshadowing of the play, it is worth keeping in mind to whom the audience Sophocles was presenting his play. The play was originally performed before the Greeks around 400 BC. Oedipus Rex is based on the Greek legend of Oedipus, a story that the play's audience watching Oedipus Rex would have been familiar with. When the reversal, or the moment where Oedipus realizes that he has killed his father and married his mother, is foreshadowed, it creates a sense of dramatic irony, because the audience knows that this reversal will occur and remembers it , but the characters in the play remain unaware of this. Many symbols and literary aspects of the play foreshadow this reversal, so that without knowing the legend of Oedipus, many of the symbols of Oedipus Rex would be lost. Almost all of Oedipus' symbols occur in opposing pairs, these pairs being called dualities. There are many different dualities in the story of Oedipus, but the two that Sophocles uses best to foreshadow Oedipus' downfall are those of light and darkness, and sight and blindness. An example of when the duality of light......middle of paper......e time he is human, to the point where we find him arrogant, to the point where denies multiple pretensions laios is his father, and he killed him. Oedipus' hamartia ties into the theme of the game, in that arrogance is not a good quality, as shown by the fact that Oedipus' arrogance ultimately leads to his downfall. In the play Oedipus Rex, the author Sophocles uses the dualities of sight and blindness and light and darkness to foreshadow Oedipus' hamartia, to reinforce his theme against arrogance. The arrogance is presented as false and overall ignorant, and ends up making Oedipus' downfall worse for the audience, and ultimately this play was created specifically for the audience's enjoyment. Audiences already knew the story of Oedipus, but Sophocles put the story into a play so powerful that we still appreciate his techniques today..