How Does Iocaste Use Character Foils In Oedipus Rex

In Oedipus Rex, Sophocles writes a remarkable story about ignorance. Ignorance can break relationships and the most obvious one, lead to a downfall. He uses abstract ideas, such as character foils and irony to heighten the enjoyment for the audience. Not only does he use these to improve the literacy of the story, but also to further extend Oedipus’s ignorance, which eventually leads to Oedipus’s downfall and influences the experience on the audience’s catharsis and overall enjoyment of the play.

Sophocles portrays Oedipus’s trait of ignorance through character foils to show how ignorance gets in the way of his personal relations with his friends. Oedipus is seen as ignorant to the doing of his of crime and this eventually leads to him looking

She justifies this by using the fact that king Laïos was murdered. Iocaste believes fate has taken a turn which has forbidden those relations from happening. Oedipus questions why anyone should "respect the Pythian heart, or give heed to the birds that jangle above his head?" (Sophocles 50) because "they spoke of things... full of wretchedness" (Sophocles 50). He believes his father, Polybos, lay dead, making the prophecy false in his blind eyes. Oedipus has blamed friends and now he degrades the Pythian heart for giving him a 'false' prophecy. If he accuses the prophecy to be false, then why would he flee Corinth? It proves that Oedipus did in fact, at one point, believe the prophecy, but now that he realizes the prophecy may be inviable, he disrespects its name. The irony that arises from his shame on the prophecy is later added on to by his wife/mother, Iocaste. She asks "why anyone in this world would be afraid, since fate rules us and nothing can be foreseen?" (Sophocles 51). Not only does Oedipus believe that the prophecy lacks credibility, Iocaste does too, because it seems as if she wants to comfort Oedipus. Sophocles established both characters to create irony with the prophecy, because the Greek audience knows that Sophocles was the playwright in Oedipus's fate, and this brings out the idea that fate cannot

Additionally, he wanted to portray that ignorance not only effected Oedipus, but also Iocaste, in the way that altered her perception of truth. Instead of escaping their fate, they have completely fulfilled their fate. This irony adds a greater downfall to Oedipus, because it will affect Iocaste and Thebes. Both of their refusal to believe that fate cannot be changed, allows their perspective on the truth to be altered. Iocaste adds support and reassurance to not worry about the prophecy being fulfilled, because his father is dead, even though Oedipus believes he could still sleep with his