Desire Versus Destiny

What does it mean to be human based upon Oedipus Rex?

Let’s be honest.  Humanity has changed a lot since the ancient Greeks.  We no longer train our children from the age of seven to be warriors like the Spartans and it’s pretty safe to say that most people don’t believe in Zeus and Apollo anymore. 

Or, have we changed?  In reality, the human condition has remained basically the same, simply with different stimuli for disaster.  One of the greatest struggles humanity faces is: how much can I affect my future?  Modern thought popularizes the idea that we make our destinies, but in Oedipus’s time, popular belief was that the gods controlled destiny.  In Sophocles’ play Oedipus Rex, we see the struggle of the desires of humanity versus the will of the gods.  Although Oedipus is responsible for the consequences of the play, whether he knew what his actions meant or not, he is shown with a desire to do good for his people throughout the play.  Oedipus searches for the truth to help the people of Thebes, although this truth will later lead to his tragic destruction.

Teirsias, the blind seer who can only speak the truth, adds another element to the question of what it means to be human.  Teirsias says to Oedipus: “How dreadful truth can be/ when there’s no help in truth.”  Oedipus denies the truth Teirsias presents because this truth convicts him of a murder.  And it seems, from the standards of today as well, that there is hardly anything more “human” than to blame another.

But, let’s take it back and step and remember Shelley’s definition of humanity: overcoming vice with virtue.  If this is the case, are Oedipus’s actions in denying the truth merely a reaction to the human condition?  Do they make him human, or take away from the best part of humanity?

While this issue seems debatable, there is a larger issue to discuss at the end of the play.  When Oedipus realizes, without doubt, that he has murdered his father and slept with his mother, he gouges out his eyes so that he no longer has to see the world around him.  He then chose exile, effectively separating himself from human society.  Part of being human is the desire to be around other humans who treat us well and act with love and kindness towards us.  Part of the human condition is loneliness, and it is my belief that humans were not created to be alone.  Humans thrive on relationships, and grieve when they are ended, whether it is by death, a break-up, disconnect between separate social groups, etc.  So is Oedipus, by choosing exile and a life of sightlessness, alone in almost every way, acting in accordance with what it means to be human?

I would propose that Oedipus desires humanity, like all of us do.  Within all of us, I believe there is a desire for good, which explains why we are disappointed when a friend betrays us or a parent is disappointed in us.  We expect good, even if we shouldn’t necessarily, based upon the human condition.   Humanity desires and expects good, while the reality of the human condition denies it.

“You have made difficulties where my heart saw none.” –Oedipus

Oedipus acts because he is overcoming is vice, or his past mistakes, with virtue in the best way he feels he can.  However, in trying to attain humanity, he actually loses critical pieces of humanity: community and the opportunity for forgiveness.  Humans desire community and community is one of the greatest factors contributing to what is means to be human.  But because the human condition is full of strife and hardship, people will make mistakes, therefore allowing for forgiveness.  Part of being human requires forgiveness of others and forgiveness of self, which Oedipus does not allow for.  Oedipus chooses what he believes to be the best course of action, but in doing so, sacrifices key elements of humanity.

In other words, Oedipus is fundamentally human in the fact that he desires good.  However, if humanity is a choice, Oedipus didn’t choose it.  Instead, he chose to accept the destiny he had been given by the gods and live in the midst of the human condition, without trying to temper it with humanity.

What does it mean to be human?

Humanity is a gift.

Humanity is a choice.

Everyone is biologically human.

But is everyone truly human within?

“This isn’t normal!  I know this isn’t normal!” I sob into a wet Kleenex, pressing the soft fibers against my face as if they can comfort me.  But as the tissue brushes against my nose rubbed raw from grieving, it only stings.  Slowly, I pull it away from my eyes, staring for a few seconds at the black mascara tattooed across the dampened and wrinkled surface.  In bitterness, I crumple the tissue and cast it to the floor, where it joins a multitude of wadded Kleenexes, a little family of sorrow.

Through tear-streaked eyes, I look up at my father.

“You have to stop comparing yourself to other people.  There is nothing weird about this.  You are grieving, and because you have a kind heart, it may take longer for you than it would for others.”  My father, with understanding eyes, looks at me.  He’s a marriage and family therapist and he’s seen grief far greater than mine.  I breathe in, and push the tissue box aside.

And the next day, I am comparing myself to everyone else again.  My emotions don’t match theirs; my responses are different every time.  Why is it that I, and many others, feel a need to constantly compare themselves to other people?  Other humans.  

Science tell us that humanity is a rule-book, a structured, unchanging list of characteristics.  I have two eyes.  Opposable thumbs.  Walk upright.  A highly developed brain.  Therefore, I am human.  And from a textbook or dictionary standpoint, I am correct.  Even society seems to have developed its own compilation on what it means to be a “normal” human.  “Normal” humans like to interact with others; those who don’t are considered odd.

Humanity is about far more than how you’re viewed by the social standards of normal.  Humanity is the capability for emotion that we’ve been given, and the capacity to make wise decisions about how to handle those emotions.  To be human is to love, to anger, and to grieve.  Some would argue that to hate, to lust, and to take vengeance are also characteristics of humanity.  I propose that these are merely the traits of a corrupted human nature.

In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the protagonist Victor Frankenstein, is a biological human, while his creation (referred to a merely ‘the monster’) is a conglomeration of human body parts.  From a scientific standpoint, the conclusions drawn are obvious.  But Shelley questions humanity on an internal level.  While the monster is a grotesque creation, referred to often as a “wretch” or “demon,” he reads classical literature, ponders his own emotions, and is tormented by isolation as he watches other humans in acts of kindness for each other.  The monster explains how he learned “to admire their virtues, and to deprecate the vices of mankind” (Shelley 114), which is perhaps Shelley’s view of what is means to be human.  To overcome vice with virtue.

However, what ideal humanity is, which perhaps is to overcome vice with virtue, is not reflective of the human condition.  The human condition is the frustration and loneliness that plague every human at one point in their life.  The human condition is the hateful or selfish actions that cause every human immense pain at one point in their life. It’s how we deal with those difficult times that either makes us human, or makes us monstrous or animalistic.

There’s a reason for the minor chords and woeful lyrics of the blues.  There’s a reason that the guy usually loses the girl in the country songs. And there’s a reason 60s and early 70s rock music sometimes had protest lyrics.  The inner desire for humanity within us is not satisfied by the human condition.  To be human is to dream for the best in humanity, and to try to better society through our actions.  The Rolling Stones’ song “Gimme Shelter” is an example of the disconnect between humanity and the human condition that causes so much strife in the world.  The speaker describes the human condition as a storm, referring to war, fire, rape and murder as physical representations of the conflict in our world.  Though, towards the end of the song, the speaker refers to love being “just a kiss away.”  In a symbolic sense, that last stanza is the humanity that the speaker hopes will overcome to the strife of the human condition. The speaker presents humanity as a choice.  If humanity is a choice, it’s a difficult one.  If humanity is a choice, will you choose it?