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Oedipus The King: Irony Is Everywhere

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Irony Is Everywhere
Irony can happen to many people, even heros. In the dramatic story ‘Oedipus the King’, Sophocles tells us of a story about a king realising his past and that a prophecy had came true. Types of ironies that can influence a hero’s tragic fall are situational, dramatic, and verbal.
First, an irony that made a major influence to Oedipus’s tragic fall was situational irony. Oedipus started unraveling his past, finding out that he was saved as a child by a shepherd which said,”I felt such pity for the child. I thought he’d take it to the safety of the country…” (Tragedian, 711). This is situational irony because he thought by taking the child away that it would not let the prophecy come true yet the prophecy ended up happening in the end. Situational irony can go a long way when it comes to characters, able to cause anything to change within an instant. …show more content…

In the beginning of the story, Oedipus is told to find the murder of King Laius so he says “If anyone knows the man who killed Laius, I order him to tell me everything” (Tragedian, 680). Dramatic irony comes into play here because the readers and many other characters within the story know the murder is Oedipus yet Oedipus himself does not know the truth. Dramatic irony can happen in any story, as readers we can understand the situation much more than the character which give us more incite then the single character within the story, allowing us to guess what may happen in the

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Situational irony is when events happen that seem to be the opposite of what is expected. For example, in O.Henry’s short story “The Ransom of Red Chief” he uses situational irony to create humor for his audience. Also in Guy de Maupassant short story “The Necklace” he uses situational irony to produce a feeling of sympathy. By examining these two short stories, it is clear that author’s utilize situational irony to affect the reader’s emotions The short story “The Ransom of Red Chief” by O.Henry uses humor to affect the reader.

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Situational irony occurs when the final outcome of a story is contradictory to what is expected. Authors often use situational irony to target the emotions of their reader. O. Henry the author of “The Ransom of Red Chief” and Guy de Maupassant the author of “The Necklace” use situational irony to affect different emotions of their readers. O. Henry uses it to target the reader’s humorous side. Whereas Guy de Maupassant uses it to target the reader’s sympathetic side.

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