You can't handle the truth...

I've noticed a major theme in Oedipus Rex--the ability to be completely blind to one's own knowledge. I believe Iocaste is blind to her knowledge, but the one who is blind to the most is Oedipus. Iocaste is blind to her knowledge about what she has done: getting married to her own son. But Oedipus is blind to all of his surroundings. He only wants to do what he believes he has to do. Let it be figuring out the Sphinx's riddle, or saving the city from the plague. I think that he does have the thought deep down that he is the son of Laios, and that he was the one who murdered him, but he doesn't want it to be him. He doesn't want the fate that the prophecy has bestowed on the murderer of the King, and he doesn't want that to be exposed that he is also the son of his very own wife. At the same time, I think Iocaste knew all this for a long time, but she, too, did not want to expose the truth, so she blinded herself from the truth until Oedipus will stop at nothing to figure it out. Only then does she try to save him from the shock of the truth, but Oedipus, being the proud and blind man he is, tells her that he must know the whole truth; he must know who he really is. Iocaste tries to tell him that he needs to stop "for [his] own good," but he insists, and that is where his fault lies. In his inability to swallow his own pride and listen for the time to stop questioning life.
I believe that the characters, along with blinding their knowledge, were also hiding their terror. For, if they spoke their terror to others, it may show a sign of weakness. Had Iocaste shown how frightened she was when she finally realized that she was incestuous, others would have seen her as weak. Had Oedipus shown terror at all the "heroic" acts he had achieved, he would have been seen as weak. Would there have been any pride left? I wonder, if he had known what was to come of him, had the Prophet told him straight up who he was and what was to come of him, would that have changed the outcome of the story? I don't think there would have been a tragedy.
The hidden knowledge and the hidden terror are, in my opinion, the basis of any great story. The fact that the characters don’t want to admit that it is them, they don’t want it to be them, creates a wonderful sense of irony when they finally admit, what I like to believe, their defeat in life. They have been defeated by their own fates, their own destinies. And they can't hide that.