Dramatic irony

A classic example of dramatic irony occurs in Oedipus of Sophocles. A plague is raging in the city and many people have died. The Oracle at Delphi gives a startling explanation – the plague will cease only if the city stops harboring a man guilty of two heinous crimes – he has killed his father and married his mother. Oedipus the King issues an edict condemning such a man and threatening dire punishment to anyone who harbored him. He does not realize that he is himself the guilty person, and in condemning such a person he is condemning himself.

That is the classic example of dramatic irony. There are several examples in Shakespeare’s plays. For example, in Macbeth King Duncan praises Macbeth for his bravery and his loyalty, saying: "He is a peerless kinsman" – a relative of the king without equal. Duncan does not realize how true that was in a sense different from the one intended, for Macbeth was indeed without equal in treachery who would murder the king.

The murder takes place in Macbeth’s castle where the king is his guest: the host murdering his own guest, a heinous violation of the rules of hospitality. When the King arrives at the castle, he notices that birds had built their nests in the crannies of the castle walls. He takes this as a sign that the castle is a place of health and safety where the air was pure: "It is a pleasant seat." He does not realize that, far from being a place of health and safety, it is actually a place of danger and death.

But the supreme example of dramatic irony is in the Gospel of St. John, and the evangelist himself calls attention to the irony.

Jesus had worked his most spectacular miracle by raising back to life a dead man who had been four days in the tomb. All the people were agog over the miracle, and his enemies, the chief priests and leaders of the Jewish people were frantic, looking for some ways of counteracting the influence of Jesus. Then Caiaphas, the high priest, said: "Don’t you know that it is better that one man should die rather than the entire nation perish?" (John 11.49).

His intent was criminal: the only way to get rid of Jesus is to murder him, and in so doing save the power of the Jewish leaders. But without his realizing it, what he said was divinely prophetic: it was necessary for Jesus to die so as to save mankind from perishing. As the evangelist puts it:

"He did not say this on his own, but since he was the high priest of that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation – and not only for the nation, but also to gather into one the dispersed children of God." –John 11.51.

That Caiaphas should make a criminal suggestion to murder an innocent man, which turns out to be a divine prophecy of that man’s salvific death – that is the supreme example of dramatic irony.