The scene between Oedipus and Teiresias is fraught with tragic irony throughout.

Teiresias is the
prophet who knows everything while Oedipus does not know himself as such. Teiresias would
not like to disclose the secret but Oedipus quickly loses his temper thus provoking the prophet to
say what he never wanted to say. Teiresias tells Oedipus that he himself is the guilty man he is
seeking and that he is living in a sinful union with the one he loves. The impact of these words is
totally lost upon Oedipus. The charges of Teiresias enrage him and he insults the prophet by
calling him a sightless sot showing his own inner blindness. An irony lies in the fact that
Teiresias, physically blind, knows the truth while Oedipus, having normal eyesight, is totally
blind to that truth. There is irony also in the contrast between what Oedipus truly is and what he
thinks himself to be. To Teiresias he boasts of his intelligence citing his past victory over the
Sphinx. The terrible predictions that Teiresias makes regarding the fate in store for Oedipus also
possess irony in the sense that, while we know their tragic imports, Oedipus treats them as the
ravings of a madman. These predictions become more awful when we realize that they will prove
to be true and valid. Teiresias warns Oedipus that the killer of Laius will ultimately find himself
blind, an exile, a beggar, a brother and a father at a same time to the children he loves, a son and
a husband to the woman who bore him, a father-killer and father-supplenter. Even the Chorus,
ignorant of the facts, refuses to believe what Teiresias has said about Oedipus. Thus both
Oedipus and the Chorus are unaware of the truth while Teiresias and the audience is fully aware
of it.

Tragic irony is also found in the scene with Creon. Creon begs Oedipus not to think him a traitor
and not to pass the sentence of death or exile against him. But Oedipus blinded by his authority
and his anger shows himself relentless. This situation is ironical of the final scene where the
roles are reversed. There Oedipus begs Creon to look after his daughters, and entreats him to
pass the order of banishment against him. Creon, being a moderate man, does not show himself
unrelenting in that scene. The pathos of the final scene is intensified.

Then there is the scene with Jocasta. Oedipus and Jocasta are ignorant of the true facts. The
audience, aware of the facts, experiences a deep sorrow at the fate which is going to overtake
these characters. Jocasta is sceptical of oracles. She thinks no man possesses the secret of
divination and as a proof she tells what she and her husband did to the child, who, according to
the oracle, was to kill his father. There is palpable irony in Jocasta’s unbelief in oracles and her
citing as proof the very case which is to prove the truth of one oracle received by her and the late
Laius. This irony deepens Jocasta's tragedy.

There is irony also in the account of his life which Oedipus gives to Jocasta. Oedipus thinks
himself to be the son of Polybus and Merope: he fled from Corinth after the oracle had told him
of the crimes he would commit: he has all along been under the impression that he has avoided
committing the crimes foretold by the oracles. But all the time Oedipus has been unknowingly
performing certain actions leading to the fulfillment of those very prophecies which he had been
striving to belie, just as King Laius had earlier taken desperate but futile measures to prevent the
fulfillment of the prophecy which has been communicated to him by the oracle.
When the Corinthian messenger brings the news of Polybus’ death, Jocasta gets another chance
to mock at the oracles without realizing that her mockery will turn against herself.
Where are you now, divine prognostication?
Jocasta tells Oedipus that this news proves the hollowness of oracles because Polybus whom
Oedipus believed to be his father has died a natural death. There is irony also in the simple
remark of the messenger that Jocasta is the “true consort” of a man like Oedipus. Neither the
messenger nor Jocasta knows the awful meaning of these words. Jocasta makes an exultant
speech on the desirability of living at random and on mother marrying as merely a figment of the
imagination. Jocasta makes this speech only a few moments before the truth dawns upon her.
The Corinthian, who wanted to free Oedipus of his fear of marrying his mother, ends by
revealing, unknowingly, the fact that Jocasta's husband, Oedipus, is really her son, although this
revelation is at this stage confined to Jocasta. The tragic irony of this situation and in what is said
by the Corinthian and Jocasta in this scene is evident.

The song of the Chorus, after Jocasta has left in a fit of grief and sorrow, is full of tragic irony.
The Chorus thereby pays a tribute to what it thinks to be the divine parentage of Oedipus. There
is a big contrast between this supposition of the Chorus and the actual reality. The arrival of the
Theban shepherd is the point at which the climax of the tragedy is reached.

After the discovery there is hardly any room for tragic irony. The concluding part consists of a
long account of the self-murder and the self-blinding, a dialogue between Oedipus and the
Chorus, and a scene between Oedipus and Creon including the brief lament by Oedipus on the
wretched condition of his daughters. The concluding portion of the play is deeply moving and
poignant, but contains little or no tragic irony.

Oedipus Rex bristles with tragic irony. It opposes Oedipus against those who know i.e. Teiresias.
Where characters themselves are not omniscient, the audience is. The audience knows the gist of
the story and can be surprised only in the means by which the necessary ends are achieved. They
know that Oedipus is, in all sincerity, telling a falsehood when he says:
I shall speak, as a stranger to the whole question and stranger to the action.
The falsehood is, however, qualified in the term stranger: the stranger who met and killed King
Laius, who met and married Queen Jocasta, the stranger who was no true stranger at all. At the
outset, he says:
For I know well that all of you are sick, but though you are sick, there’s none of you who is
so sick as I.
Here he is, indeed, speaking the truth, but more truth, than he knows, because he is using
sickness only in a symbolic sense while actually it is true of him in a literal tense.

In addition to this irony of detail, there is a larger irony in the inversion of the whole action. The
homeless wanderer by delivering the city of Thebes from the sphinx and marrying Jocasta
became a King in fact, but this revelation turned him once more into a homeless wanderer, who
had once gone bright eyed with his strong traveller’s staff, now uses the staff to feel the way
before him.

The reversed pattern is seen again in the fact that the cruel oracles have their darkest moment just
before they come clear. Jocasta’s words mocking the prophecy of the gods are echoed and
amplified in Oedipus’ typical tyrant-speech of unbelief. The role of the helpers is another
example. Sophocles provides at least one helper, or rescuer, for every act. The appeal in the
prologue is to Oedipus, himself a rescuer in the past. Oedipus appeals to Creon who comes from
and represents Apollo and Delphi. It is as a rescuer that Teiresias is called. Jocasta intervenes to
help. So does the Corinthian messenger, and the last helper, the Theban shepherd, is the true and
original rescuer. Those who do not know the reality are eager to help; those who know are
reluctant. But all helper alike push Oedipus over the edge into disaster