Theme Of Irony In Oedipus The King

William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is a tragic story about two lovers who are from two disputing families, and their eventual suicides. Shakespeare uses dramatic irony throughout the play to create tension for the audience and foreshadow the ending. Dramatic irony is when the words or actions of characters in a story have a different meaning to the reader than to the characters. This is because the reader knows something that the characters do not. Romeo and Juliet’s death could have been prevented if the characters in the story weren’t so ignorant of their situations, and often times the reader recognizes this.

A well-written tragedy is filled with irony. Oedipus The King is a great representation of a dramatic irony play. When reading the play the audience is very much aware of the outcome of the hero’s action far before the hero

An example of dramatic irony is when Fortunato tells Montresor not to worry about his health and that “the cough is a mere nothing; it will not kill me. I will not die of a cough” (POE 238) Montresor then replies, “True–true.” When the reader reads this, they see that Fortunato is clueless of Montresor’s true plan is and while he tells Fortunato he will be all right. That he will not die, he is planning to kill him. This is dramatic because we as the reader feel a sense of sorrow because we know the truth about what will

The entire play comes to a tragic end. And with dramatic irony is clearly seen in the entire play. Oedipus killed his father and murdered his mother, but Oedipus and Jocasta did not find out until the end, Tieresias ' warnings and prophecy clearly portray the use of irony. Rhetorical questions are seen questioning himself or fate. What, born as mine were born?”

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.

Blindness was another dramatic irony in the play, and relates to the entire play at large.

The definition of irony is a contrast between two things. One example is verbal irony. It is a contrast between what someone says and what one means, while dramatic irony is a contrast between what the characters know to be true and what the readers know to be true. Many writers use irony in their short stories to prove a dramatic point, or just to develop a story for upcoming use. These short stories by Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” (140), Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers” (183), and Stephen Crane’s “The Blue Hotel” (229), spin a tale of symbolic irony. Each tell a tale paradoxical twists with sublime contradiction where one is led to believe one side of an event, yet it is dragged down a twisted trail of mental sarcasms coupled with death. It is a known fact that many tales of irony require many major events to twist the order they are written in to create a viewpoint that stride away from the main topic or where the author wants the reader to end up.

Starting with Sophocles primary play, “Oedipus Rex,” the relationship between Oedipus and his parents support the works theme of fate and pride. Through antecedent action told throughout “Oedipus Rex,” Oedipus received a prophecy that he would kill his father and sleep with his mother. Jocasta, his biological mother additionally received a prophecy long before Oedipus pronouncing her child to kill her husband. Both, Jocasta and Oedipus recall that they can outsmart the prophecies by avoiding the fate in which they write. With extreme pride that they carry out avoidance plans that contribute to the plot and irony of Sophocles work. Jocasta sentenced her son to death to avoid her prophecy. Oedipus ran from his perceived “real parents,” from Corinth to Thebes to avoid his fate, killing a stranger on the way to the new kingdom. Eventually, Oedipus and Jocasta get married and conceive children together providing accuracy to their fate later when all mysterious are discovered. Their relationships shows that the Gods are beyond their control, even though with their hubris that noted they could get out of it. The family relationship aspect of “Oedipus Rex,” situation adds more dramatized plot to Sophocles work. Faith in the trilogies is a concept in all of Sophocles three plays that can unarguably be avoided, Oedipus and Jocasta having the same thought process and traits shows a son and mother relationships. Jocasta and Oedipus marrying one another is Sophocles way of creating the irony for viewers of the play.

Oedipus the King is perhaps one of the most famous and influential of Sophocles' plays. It is a tragic play which focuses on the discovery by Oedipus that he has killed his father and married his mother. On the surface of this drama there is, without a doubt, a tone of disillusionment.

Dramatic irony in Oedipus the King is evident throughout, which is similar to the latter play, but in a different form. In here, the irony is evident. Oedipus the King revolves around characters' attempts to change their destiny (which fails) - Jocasta and Laius's killing of Oedipus and Oedipus's flight from Corinth. Each time somebody tries to avert the future, the audience knows

Sophocles’ Oedipus is a dramatic play that deals with tragedy and comedy. Tragedy can awaken humans to the place of grasping hope and growth; Aristotle’s and Sophocles’ display an all-inclusive story of the tragedy of fate. Sophocles’ tragedy is an emotional story of a ruler who kills his father and unwarily takes his mother as his significant other. A tragic hero characterizes one who makes unwise decisions that prompts catastrophe overcome. Due to the prophecy that their new son would kill his father, Laius and, Jocasta, King and Queen of Thebes, gave their infant to a shepherd with orders that he be left on a mountainside to die. The shepherd, however,

Sophocles was born a hundred years before Aristotle and perhaps was not aware that he wrote a near-perfect representation of the tragic form. Almost certainly, however, he was conscious of the dramatic irony he carefully intertwined throughout the plot. Dramatic irony was a tool for Sophocles to advance the notion of the tragic one step beyond the simple fate of the main character. Dramatic irony is a literary technique allowing the audience to know of the character's fate well before such fate occurs. The difference between the audience's knowledge of the tragic circumstances and that of the ignorant characters heightens the depth of the tragedy. The more significant the ultimate sacrifice which the innocent hero makes, the more powerful the message sent to those in

The play, Oedipus the King by Sophocles, bases its plot around dramatic irony. Dramatic irony is a literary device in which the audience is aware of a series of events or characteristics that the characters themselves are not yet aware of. This device was used to shape the tone of the work and furthermore the reader’s reaction to it. In the play, dramatic irony is used to tell the story and affects the reader's perception of the protagonists. These characters especially include Oedipus and Queen Jocasta. The writer depends on dramatic irony to set up the tragedy.

In the play Oedipus The King written by Sophocles, it is the blind man who can see the truth of Oedipus and Jocasta’s relationship and it is those that see, Oedipus and Jocasta, who are blind to the truth. When Oedipus finally sees the truth of his actions, he blinds himself in horror. The irony here is that only the blind see things clearly, while the seeing blind themselves to the reality in front of them. While believing himself to be living in the light, Oedipus is actually living in darkness. The story of Oedipus begins as a murder mystery in a village that is suffering from a plague that is threatening to destroy the village. The author continues to use prophets and messengers as well as irony to follow the main character. Sophocles uses the motif of blindness and sight, the contrasting imagery of darkness and light, along with dramatic irony to bring a huge impact to the meaning of the story. A motif is a symbol which can take on a figurative meaning. In this case the author uses blindness and sight as the motif. Imagery is used as a descriptive language. In this story the author uses light and dark as imagery. Dramatic irony is an irony that happened when the meaning of a situation is understood by the audience but not by the characters. An example of dramatic irony is shown when the old soothsayer visits the King. Oedipus did not listen to the man because he's blind, and Teiresias is full of anger tells the Oedipus that though he might be able to see he is "blind" to the truth. When Oedipus finally becomes blind at the end of the play, Oedipus realizes the truth of the soothsayer’s words. Irony is also showing that the only person that can see the truth is the blind man.

Aristotle’s Poetics argues that a successful tragedy is determined by its “plot, character, diction, reasoning, spectacle and lyric poetry”(50a8). According to Aristotle, plot is essential to a great tragedy: the most effective tragic device is conveyed through the work’s plot. Yet, having a protagonist of “not outstanding moral excellence or justice” undergoing bad fortune due to own error instead of “moral defect or depravity” would distinguish a good tragedy from a poor one. Additionally, Aristotle argues that a successful tragedy also yields pleasure to the audience. In Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus, Oedipus’s character traits, the play’s coincidences, and Oedipus’ hamartia contribute to the effective arousal of pity and fear, and Oedipus’ recognition of past sins contribute to the pleasure part. Combining the pitiful reactions and pleasurable demonstration of humanity, Oedipus Tyrannus presents itself as the perfect Aristotelian tragedy.