Oedipus Dramatic Irony Essay

The story of Oedipus is full of irony such as verbal, tragic, and situational irony. For example, verbal irony appears in Oedipus’ speeches. When Oedipus orders for the man who killed Laius to be punished, he is unaware that he is in fact the murder. Verbal irony appears again when Oedipus ridicules Teiresias for his blindness when Oedipus is also blind, witless and senseless to his own actions. An example of situational irony is: Oedipus is an adopted son; he hears the prophecy; he escapes the city to avoid fulfilling the prophecy only to escape to his real parents.

In the play Oedipus the King by Sophocles, there is a plague that is going on in the city of Thebes. The reason there is a plague is because Oedipus killed his father, the previous ruler of Thebes. The reason he killed his father was because he ran away to try to avoid it but ran into his father that he didn’t know and ended up killing him just like his prophecy said. The central idea of prophecies can be proven through the use of literary elements such as irony and extended metaphors.

The key to having a perfect Greek tragedy is to make it as realistic as possible which is exactly what Sophocles does in Oedipus Rex. He takes Oedipus who is better than anyone else which is proven through his intelligence by the fact he was the only one who answered the Sphinx’s riddle correctly making him a hero to the people of Thebes. Oedipus is also imperfect by the fact he cannot make good judgments. “Creon is no threat. You weave your own doom. ” (Sophocles 20), when Tiresias speaks to Oedipus about his doom he defends himself by saying, “Wealth, power, craft of statesmanship! Kingly position, everywhere admired! What savage envy is stored up against these,” (Sophocles 20). He ignores the truths told to him and what Tiresias tells him about the prophecy.

In Sophocles’ play “Oedipus the King”, dramatic irony greatly influences the audience’s perception of Oedipus. When creating Oedipus the King, Sophocles understood that his audience would know the outcome of the play before the completion, so he was determined to create a play, which was interesting, yet deliberately revealing at the same time. Sophocles purposely provided explicit scenes within the play that was incredibly ironic but was only grasped by the audience and not the characters. There are several examples of such scenes, including when; Oedipus mocks Tiresius for being blind, which is a form of verbal irony. Another example of dramatic irony is when Oedipus hears his prophecy to murder his father and sleep with his mother; he flees to the city and unknowingly fulfills the prophecy. The final example of dramatic irony is when Oedipus realizes that his sense of sight was useless he couldn’t “see” the truth that was front of him but as he was a blind beggar, he came to understand the whole truth.

Oedipus, raised with his adopted parents, got a prophecy that he would kill a man at a crossroad and become yet he ignored it and continued anyway. Why would he do it? was it because he was carefree, or didn't believe? " OEDIPUS: You’d rob us of this your gift of prophecy? You talks one who had no care for law nor love for Thebes who reared you "

Sophocles uses irony in his writing to prove only fate controls one's life and not free will. The dramatic irony asserting the reader that the prophecy had indeed come true before Oedipus even knows it further proves that fate controls the lives of mortals. Teiresias uses irony to proclaim to Oedipus “that with those you love best you live in foulest shame unconsciously and do not see where you are in calamity (633).Teiresias used dramatic irony by telling Oedipus how his life contains a path of shame yet he does not believe him. Every time that Oedipus does not believe another person who tells him of the shame that approaches in the near future the reader becomes more aware of the situation and the dramatic irony becomes more and

Sophocles uses irony very frequently in this play, one could argue that the entire play is just a form of dramatic irony.

At the beginning of Oedipus Thebes is struck by a plague and the oracle of Apollo says the reason for it is because the King's murderer is still walking free. The oracle knew that Oedipus tragedy was caused by faith, he knew what was going to happen the whole time. Queen Jocasta and King Laius abandoned Oedipus because the oracle had told them that Louis will be killed by his own child. Oedipus married his own mother and even conceived children with her and murdering his own father. Oedipus had always tried to run from what his faith will be, but at the end he couldn’t run from it. The tragedy at the end results on Queen Jocasta hanging herself and Oedipus stabbing his own eyes out. Sophocles uses dramatic, situational,

The Greek play Oedipus Rex, written by Sophocles is well known for its dramatic irony. The play is based upon an ancient Greek tale in which the king of Thebes, Oedipus, must find a solution to a plague that has taken over the city, causing great sickness and death of its people. Eventually, Oedipus figures out that he is the reason for the plague because he has killed his father, the old king of Thebes, and married his mother, with whom he has four children. Since this basic storyline is well known throughout Greece, Sophocles uses dramatic irony to add a sense of humour and suspense ; to cause disturbance within the audience, and make the play more interesting. The use of dramatic irony is highly successful in Sophocles' plays as it gives the audience a sense of what is going to happen, however the characters do not. The words and actions of the characters exhibit the dramatic irony that brings the play to life.

Towards the end, the irony leads to Oedipus physically blinding himself. His hubris lead to all the wrongs happening that he clearly struggled to see. When he finally realizes it, he decides to blind himself with golden brooches from Jocasta after she commits suicide from finding out the truth.

Much of the tragedy of the play comes from the irony involved in fate Oedipus’s life. Being a tragic hero Oedipus is on a quest for truth, during his quest he realizes that if he continues on his quest for truth he will cause himself great harm yet he continues his pursuit for truth. The audience is seized by the ironic nature of this play, and the tragic nature of Oedipus’s life. Oedipus is lines up against fate and takes steps to try not to fulfill the prophecy that he will kill his father and marry his mother. In fact, Oedipus is horrified by this and ran away to try to escape his doom, yet fate had other plans for him and causes him to run directly to the place that he will fulfill his destiny. The

Sight is a very important motif in this play. Oedipus is unable to see his fate clearly because he is blinded by his tragic flaws. Sophocles really drilled the motif of sight vs. blindness into the fabric of this play. The first sight of this motif is at the beginning of the play when the prophet Teiresias graces the stage. Teiresias is blind, but he can see Oedipus 's past, present, and future and the pain it will cause. Even though Oedipus 's eyes are fine, he is blinded to his fate because of pure ignorance. Oedipus’s ignorance on this key matter which is purely ironic because he was famous for his keen insight, after solving the riddle of the Sphinx. As a matter of fact Oedipus calls Teiresias powers

Oedipus The King, or Oedipus Rex as it is more commonly known, is an Athenian tragedy written by Sophocles; one of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays survived. The play centres on Oedipus, the protagonist and hero of the tragedy who inadvertently fulfils an oracles prophecy that he would, in his adulthood, murder his father, Laius, and marry his mother, Jacosta. In the time of the ancient Greeks, tales spun by dramatists and poets were either of a comedic or tragic nature, in particular. Oedipus The King is both a play of tragedy and of irony, and questions the audience whether enlightenment, or simply the art of ‘knowing’, is really such a good thing. Teiresiasa asserts a fitting assertion that consolidates the aforementioned enquiry:

Tiresias is an ironic character, he is a blind old man who is able to see the truth. Sophocles uses irony to contrast Tiresias and Oedipus. Oedipus who is able to physically see but does not know the origins of his past. Oedipus insults Teiresias after he tell Oedipus he is the murderer of Laius, during the conversation there is extensive use of irony, “ You are blind,your ears and mind as well as eyes” (pg 25) The irony is that while Oedipus is insulting Tiresias about being blind but he is the one unable to see the truth. When Oedipus says “ Tell me, when were you a true prophet ? When the Sphinx chanted her riddle here,did you come forward to speak the word that would liberate the people of this town”(pg 27) It shows that he views himself as a better man than Tiresias because he is physically able to see. This is dramatic irony because we already know that he is as honorable as he thinks, Oedipus has committed an unspeakable crime of bearing children with his mother and killing his father. In a literal sense it is ironic when Tiresias says “ Blind instead of seeing, beggar instead of rich,” (pg 31) because Tiresias is blind but we know that Tiresias means that Oedipus is blind to the truth and is living in “ the dark “ , despite the fact that he is physically

A) Dramatic irony, something that gives play that sense of je ne sais quoi; to have the audience have and edge of knowledge that the cast/character doesn’t. In Oedipus, Oedipus is a child of Jocasta and Laius. Prophesied to murder his father, to lay with his mother and bare children. As the play entails Jocasta and Laius decide to take heed to the oracle's prophecy and kill their newborn in fear of what was yet to come. King Laius was to have his babies ankles pinned and put on a cliffside left to die. Oedipus was taken into another kingdom adopted by the king and queen not knowing they were his real parents. He soon finds out his fate to murder his father and lay with his mother; thinking he is larger than life flees to escape his destiny