A great irony is found in Oedipus's decree condemning the murderer. Oedipus says, "To avenge the city and the city's god, / And not as though it were for some distant friend, / But for my own sake, to be rid of evil. / Whoever killed King Laios might - who knows? - / Decide at any moment to kill me as well." Later he says, "As for the criminal, I pray to God - / Whether it be a lurking thief, or one of a number - / I pray that that man's life be consumed in evil and wretchedness." When we know the truth that Oedipus is the killer he speaks of, this statement becomes very ironic. Oedipus puts himself as his worst enemy, as he says later, "I think that I myself may be accurst / By my own ignorant edict."

Oedipus makes many ironic statements throughout the play. One of the most sad is when Oedipus makes a slip and says 'highwayman' instead of highwaymen. This could suggest that Oedipus subconsciously knew that he had fulfilled the pro

The use of irony in Oedipus Rex reveals much about the character of Oedipus. We see that Oedipus truly is the 'public' man and can only possess one sight, that of the 'public' world. This public persona proved to be the end of him when he decreed his own fate to the people of Thebes. The 'private' sight, the inward sight, which Teiresias accuses Oedipus of lacking, is perhaps only suppressed in Oedipus, as he makes many ironic 'prophesies' of his own hinting that he knows of his true fate.

Oedipus Rex, by Sophocles, (as translated by Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald), is replete with dramatic devices - one of which is known as Sophoclean Irony. Sophoclean Irony can be divided into two terms: unconscious and conscious irony. Unconscious irony occurs when a character speaks what he believes is the truth, but the audience (fore-armed with knowledge of the truth) knows that it is not. Conscious irony is evident when a character knows the truth but is reluctant to reveal it: thus, he speaks cryptic lines deliberately intended to be ironic. Both types of irony will be examined in this paper and passages from the text will be cited in support of this thesis.

Oedipus Rex is notable for its use of dramatic irony: everybody in the audience knows from the start that Oedipus himself is the guilty party he seeks out for punishment. The viewers' enjoyment comes as they see and hear the facts accumulate, bit by bit, until it suddenly dawns on Oedipus that he is his father's murderer. The irony is heightened by blind Teiresias' many tauntings and the chorus' musical references to "seeing the light" Oedipus, though his physical eyes can see, is blind to the truth; and when he finally does come to see the truth, ironically, he blinds himself.

The tragedy of Oedipus Rex is not so much that Oedipus commits two horrible crimes; after all, he was fated to do so, and committed them unknowingly. It is, rather, that he, like his doomed parents before him, ran headlong into the destiny he was trying to defy, and then compounded his evils by his imperious refusal to believe the prophet's declaration of his guilt. Pride was his downfall. The Greeks had a distinct word for this: "Hubris," a heroically foolish defiance; the feeling that one is beyond the reaches of authority or convention.

phesy all along and had suppressed this knowledge as it was too horrible. Oedipus first invokes the gods, saying, "I pray the favor of justice, and of all immortal gods." Then, when they grant that justice, he damns them: "God. God. . . . What has god done to me? . . . Children, that god was Apollo." At the beginning of the drama, Oedipus unknowingly tells the truth again: "Sick as you are, no one is as sick as I." Oedipus confirms this later, after he knows the truth, by saying, "For I am sick in my daily life, sick in my origin." It is ironic also that Oedipus saves the city from the plague of the Sphinx and in doing so, he brings on another plague some years later by his very presence.

Some topics in this essay:
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