Oedipus Rex makes it incredibly difficult for happiness to make an appearance. I mean, really, it's tough to find happiness in a story that deals with murder, incest, guilt, and gouging out eyes... and I'm an optimist. Since we are dealing with an ancient Greek legend, we can typically assume that it will be a story of either tragedy or comedy. The Greeks weren't known for evoking multiple emotions throughout a story, unlike Steinbeck. I suppose if I was going to pull happiness out of the tale, it could possibly be the happiness that Tiresias possesses in knowing Oedipus' fate and watching him blindly stumble into it anyway. But this is assuming Tiresias revels in Oedipus' unfortunate and predetermined journey and is otherwise happy when he can say "I told you so" at the end of the play.
Before giving up on the rest of the happiness in the land of Oedipus, I think a different angle is necessary to explore happiness. This story, spun countless different ways over its thousands of years, has been told to thousands of individuals for entertainment. It was originally played out, never written down, in order to entertain the Greeks amidst their daily lives. Even if it's a tragedy with little to no happiness or joy involved, it was still serving as an escape from reality and fun for those listening. I'm guessing that the thousands of individuals who have heard/read/told this story since then have found some sort of happiness in form of entertainment. Even if that does mean that we like hearing about gouged out eyes..
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