Essay on Oedipus Rex Dramatic Irony - Special Academic Support

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The black death is set upon the city of Thebes, as the people look towards their righteous king, Oedipus for hope and resolution. Oedipus is seen as a hero to the people, but has not identified with himself: ‘I grieve for these, my people, far more than I fear for my own life’ (Sophocles 163). Oedipus’s self-thoughts and heroic beliefs are shaped and challenged. He is unaware of his hamartia, as he is oblivious to his true self. His selfishness is his downfall, as he presumes too much of his understanding of the world as: ‘He is the plague, the heart of our corruption’ (Sophocles 172). He solemnly swears that he will find the murderer of Laius as he feels there is: ‘Nothing to fear, even if he must denounce himself’ (Sophocles 171). As of yet, Oedipus feels no such pain, he has not escaped his birth, as the truth is hidden from him in the darkness.

Oedipus’s willingness to find the murderer of Laius is reflected in the presence of the blind seer, Tiresias. Oedipus’s hubris is demonstrated as he confronts the blind seer, for saying he was the murderer of Laius: ‘You, scum of the earth, you’d enrage a heart of stone!’ (Sophocles 178). Tiresias holds the key to Oedipus’s future and immortality, and refuses to abide by Oedipus’s commands: ‘The truth with all its power lives inside me’ (Sophocles 179). Oedipus thinks he is cleverer than Tiresias, who speaks for the Gods. Oedipus’s pride and good fortune have been defied by the Gods for mocking Tiresias’s blindness. His wife, Jocasta believes that this potential prophecy is a farce as: ‘nothing human can penetrate the future’ (Sophocles 201). Jocasta knows the truth of Oedipus’s fate, as she attempts to isolate his worries, as he wants to know the truth from a Shephard: ‘I am afraid Jocasta: I’ve got to see him’ (Sophocles 204). This emphasises that the noble and courageous king that once was, is now no more.

As the oracle comes to pass for Oedipus, he comes to terms with his peripetia and anagnorisis, that he would kill his father, Laius, and marry his mother, Jocasta. He has been: ‘cursed in the lives I cut down with these hands!’ (Sophocles 232). The death of Jocasta: ‘By her hand’, forces Oedipus to blind himself as punishment. He laments and weeps as: ‘He rips off her brooches, the long gold pins’ and ‘digs them into the sockets of his eyes’ (Sophocles 236 and 237). This emphasized Oedipus’s belief that by clearing his name, he would be free from his torment and destructive nature. He is now implicated for his crimes and there is no light for him anymore: ‘Blind in the darkness-blind!’ (Sophocles 237). The soliloquy: ‘hide me somewhere, kill me, hurl me into the sea where you can never look on me again’ reveals Oedipus’s true desires and psychological state of what he wants to happen for his wrongdoings as he wishes to be exiled (Sophocles 244).

The pathos of Oedipus is significant in the denouement of the play. There is pity and empathy for him, as we see him for the first, and last time as a family man, towards his two daughters, Antigone and Ismene: ‘I fathered you in the soul that gave me life’ (Sophocles 248). The character of Creon, whom Oedipus believed had the desire to take his place as king, grants Oedipus’s exile: ‘You’ll get your wish at once’ (Sophocles 250). With that said, the tragedy of Oedipus’s exile could signify the power and authority of Creon as he now has full control over the city of Thebes: ‘No more: here your power ends. None of your power follows you through life’ (Sophocles 250). The reader is left with a resolution, but not a satisfiable one, as the dramatic irony of this play demonstrates despair for the reader and predicts the outcome of Oedipus’s fate: ‘Count no man happy till he dies, free of pain at last’ (Sophocles 251).

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