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.