Oedipus' life is revealed during the hours on stage. It is difficult to think of another play in which unity of time as a formal property of the drama contributes more to meaning. Every step Oedipus takes to solve the old murder mystery, every new confrontation with those he summons to appear with pieces of the past, every one of their chance disclosures, brings him closer both to the solution he seeks and to the self discovery he does not foresee. When the last piece falls into place the detective becomes the criminal, his success his doom, his happy ignorance...
the discrepancy between what seems to be and what is. It is therefore properly the sustaining mode of a tragedy of self-ignorance. At the beginning of the play Oedipus has a clear and single purpose: to find Laios 's murderer. When he later begins to pursue his own parentage the obvious irony is that wise and self assured man doesn't' realize that his purpose has changed. The deeper irony is that it hasn't really changed, since the answer to the question of whose son he is also the answer to the question who killed Laios. Pride motivates both quests.