The passage I will analyze is (161-176). Before doing so, Oedipus insisted that all his people listen to what the oracle had to say, although Creon suggested that Oedipus should listen to him in private. When Creon retells the story of Laius’s murder, Oedipus is shocked and dismayed that the investigation into the king’s murder was dropped so quickly. Oedipus quickly made plans to deal with the suffering of his people and the unsolved murder of Laius, even anticipating the choir’s suggestion to send someone to the oracle and summon Teiresias. Finally, Oedipus strongly promises severe punishment for Laius’s murderer, even if the murderer is someone close to Oedipus himself. Oedipus’s frequent references to foresight and blindness create many moments of dramatic irony, as the audience knows that it is Oedipus’s metaphorical blindness about the relationship between his past and his present situation that ruins him. When the old priest told Oedipus that Thebes had died of the plague, Oedipus said that he could not help but see it.
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