Oedipus Rex as a Tragedy
We do feel pity for Oedipus Rex, being a person with so much intelligence, yet cheated by fate and his own doing. However, nowadays we tend to empathise more when the victims are truly powerless, and not a King who creates his own undoing. Therefore I feel more for the people who were helpless to defend themselves against the accusations brought against them.
Although we might not feel the tragedy of Oedipus Rex when we are analysing it, it still has the ability to move people. The thought of a man with so much potential, driven to near madness makes us shudder and think, "what if we were in his position". This fear is an inherent part of tragedy. We can also see the innocents who are implicated, just as in the Crucible. Jocasta must have felt really horrible to find out she slept with her own son, and was driven to kill herself. Oedipus' children was forced to live under the shadow of a curse.
However I am compelled to think, what might have happened had Oedipus reacted differently to the news that the prophesy was fulfilled. The thought of having committed an incestuous relationship and killing ones own father might be too much to bear, but considering that Oedipus could have absolved the guilt on his conscience means that he could have accepted that this was fate and he could have done nothing to prevent it. Now that everything else was in the past, he could now get on and move on in life.