Oedipus Rex Analysis Irony Knowledge Catharsis

The main theme of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex is knowledge. Oedipus begins the play wanting to know why Thebes is suffering a plague. He turns Creon, who has been sent to the oracle to find the meaning of the plague. Creon reports that the Thebans must “drive away the polluting stain this land has harboured” (113-14). The polluting stain refers to the murder of King Laius and the fact that the murderer still lives, unpunished, in Thebes. Oedipus vows to remove the offending pollution. Sophocles uses irony to bring the tragedy into focus. Oedipus declares, “This polluting stain I will remove, not for some distant friend, but for myself. For whoever killed this man may soon enough desire to turn his hand in the same way against me, too, and kill me” (165-69). The irony is that he is the murderer, and by acting as the prosecutor of justice he inadvertently destroys the life he has come to possess as ruler: in the end, his wife will hang herself out of horror for what the facts have uncovered; he will blind himself and stagger out of Thebes a broken man. Yet in the great fall that he experiences, Oedipus comes to know himself. The audience experiences a cathartic effect, which is the purging of the emotions.

Oedipus is warned not to pursue the case by the prophet Teiresias, whose advice is not heeded by the impulsive Oedipus. The prophet tells him that he will not like the answer he seeks—but Oedipus is driven by pride; after all, he solved the riddle of the Sphinx, and he is not afraid of a challenge. He fails, however, to understand the full measure of the warning given him. When Oedipus pushes the prophet to say what he knows on the matter, Teiresias states, “You are all ignorant. I will not reveal the troubling things inside me” (391-92). Teiresias knows that Oedipus is the murderer and that, to make matters worse, he has married to his mother and has had children by her. Oedipus erupts violently towards him and calls the prophet the “most disgraceful of disgraceful men” (399). Sophocles again uses irony here, for the prophet is actually trying to be merciful by withholding knowledge from Oedipus. He urges Oedipus to bear the burden of the plague to his death rather than seek out the murderer of Laius. Oedipus will not hear it, and his temper gets the better of him. Indeed, it is this temper of his that led him to kill (unknowingly) his father Laius earlier in his life. Thus, it is not Teiresias who is the most disgraceful of disgraceful men, but rather Oedipus—he just does not know it yet. Only Teiresias knows the truth.

At this point, the audience is sympathetic to Oedipus because they do not know what the prophet knows and they, like Oedipus, are prone to see the prophet as disagreeable. Yet, they also should sense that the prophet knows something and his warning should be considered. This creates the tension in the drama; Oedipus insists on moving forward with the inquiry, and the audience agrees with this impulse, too. It is natural to want to know the truth. But at the same time, a feeling of dread creeps over everything as everyone begins to sense that the inquiry will lead to a horrific revelation that will change everything.