The most obvious irony in Oedipus Rex is that Oedipus's attempt to avoid fulfilling his terrible prophecy is actually what enables it to come true. Oedipus was raised by his adoptive parents, Polybus and Merope, the king and queen of Corinth, after his biological parents, Laius and Jocasta, the king and queen of Thebes, sent him away to be killed to avoid a prophecy that Laius received which stated that his son would kill him and then marry his wife. Oedipus grew up, never knowing that his adoptive parents weren't his biological parents until, one day, a drunk man told him about it. He needed to know if what the man said was true and so he went to the oracle to find out, but the oracle wouldn't answer his questions. Instead, she said that he would one day kill his father and marry his mother. Thinking, then, that he would kill Polybus and marry Merope, he resolved never to return to Corinth and to go to Thebes instead. He met a man on the road, got into an altercation with him, and killed him; this man turned out to be his biological father, Laius. When Oedipus got to Thebes, after answering the sphinx's riddle and freeing the city from her reign of terror, the Thebans were so happy with him and in need of a king, so they made him king and he married the old king's wife, his mother, Jocasta. It is hugely ironic that Oedipus's attempt to avoid the prophecy is the very thing that renders it possible.
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