Would you rather have an acute awareness of your own fate in life, or be blissfully ignorant of what the gods have in store for you? Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, translated by David Grene, explains knowledge as an awareness of the future, or fate. This knowledge can lead to a greater understanding as to one’s purpose in life, but in the end results in misery because humans try to control fate, which is impossible. Oedipus the King shows the results of learning fate and the moral price that comes with attempting to change the future.
These results clarify the sorrows that knowledge brings to life through the predetermination of fate and the futility of divining one’s fate. Peaceful ignorance of destiny is the simplest and most harmonious way to go through life. Instead of letting the knowledge of fate manipulate one’s actions, it is better instead to avoid prophecies altogether and live with an illusion of free will. By these actions, it is possible to live peacefully within the world. In Oedipus the King, Jocasta urges Oedipus to stop seeking out his own fate: “O Oedipus, God help you! God keep you from the knowledge of who you are! (Sophocles, Oedipus the King, 1068).
In his early years, Oedipus had heard a prophecy from the oracle at Delphi that foretold him murdering his own father and procreating with his mother. This prediction causes Oedipus to run away from his home to avoid his adoptive parents, whom Oedipus is afraid he will kill and marry, respectively. What Oedipus does not know however, is that he drives his predicted fate forward by his efforts to impede the prophecy. By avoiding his adoptive parents, Oedipus encounters his biological parents, and proceeds to unknowingly fulfill the prophecy.
Jocasta suspects this is true before Oedipus realizes what he has done, and she prays that Apollo, the Greek god of truth and prophecy, will keep the knowledge hidden from Oedipus and thus spare his sanity. Jocasta knows that if Oedipus figures out who he really is, he will suffer a great loss of vitality, and in the end, she is proven right. Oedipus may have avoided suffering by not visiting the oracle at Delphi in the first place. If he had not heard his prophecy, he would not have been influenced to travel to Thebes, and thus would not have killed his father and married his mother.
Oedipus’s choice to pursue the knowledge of his destiny led him down a path of misery and despair. The conscious choice to seek out fate brings suffering to life because of the undesirable outlooks it reveals. These undesirable outlooks are made even worse when it becomes clear that there is no avoiding them. Ignorance of fate leads to a happier life. After Oedipus learns the truth about his inadvertent fulfillment of the tragic prophecy, he himself wishes that he had not heard of it at all: “Had I died then I would not be so burdensome to friends” (1355).
If Oedipus had died before he knew his fate, he says he would have been better off than living out his prophecy. He expresses his regret for learning of his destiny. Without the knowledge, Oedipus’s life and the lives of his family members’ would have been drastically improved from what they become. In the absence of prophecy, Oedipus’s actions may have appeared as freak accidents; instead, Oedipus is forced to realize the helpless cause of trying to take control of one’s own life.
The Gods can control fate at will, and no matter what Oedipus had done, after learning of his fortune, he would have been unwittingly manipulated into performing the horrific acts involving his parents. Oedipus laments over this fact after previously celebrating his adoptive father’s death and thus his own apparent victory over the oracle’s grim prophecy. Oedipus’s denial of the truth comes back to plague him as the prophecy is fulfilled. He can see that it did not matter what course of action he took; he would have been led to tragedy like a lamb to the slaughter.
The knowledge only led him to despair about his uture; nothing good came from learning his own fate. By seeking out fate, Oedipus caused his own life to deteriorate. Knowledge of prophecy only burdens the enlightened individual with expectations for the future, most of which are negative projections. These negative outlooks cause a sense of despair and helplessness, stemming from the concrete nature of the future, that drives a person insane. However, knowledge of fate can also give an individual purpose in life, as Oedipus demonstrated. A resolve to adventure and travel the world led to great achievements for Oedipus.
He was led to wander to faroff cities and explore Greece instead of staying in his homeland. This inclination came directly after hearing the prophecy that caused him to flee his home. As a result of this, Oedipus solved the riddle of the Sphinx and became a great ruler of Thebes. These events mostly served to inflate his ego and surreptitiously fulfill the prophecy about Oedipus’s life. While a sense of purpose instigates some seemingly great moments in his life, ultimately, Oedipus is destined to live tragically, as told by the herdsman: “If you are the man he says you are; you’re bred to misery” (1180).
This statement confirms the original prophecy and at the same time shows that he, Oedipus, cannot escape his sad fate. Oedipus loses his gilded perception of free will and realizes the fallacy of self-determination. His misconception of autonomy is revealed when he leaves home to avoid his fate. At that moment, he falsely believes that he can change his own prophecy. The irony of this situation is exemplified when Oedipus vows to find the killer of Laius, the old king of Thebes and his father.
When Oedipus proclaims that he will find and prosecute the murderer, even if it is someone close to him, a seer, Teiresias, claims that Oedipus is the killer. Oedipus immediately repudiates this accusation because he suspects that Teiresias is plotting to dethrone him through false prophecies. However, Teiresias’s predictions prove to be true; the truth was in front of Oedipus, who, blinded by pride, refused to accept his fate. Once Oedipus can ignore his fortune no longer, he is overcome with despair at his poor lot in life. His anguish caused by knowledge causes him to tear his eyes out.
With this physical blindness comes a spiritual awakening to what fate means for the world. The knowledge reveals the utter helplessness of humans’ power over destiny and demonstrates how much power the Gods really possess over human life. Pursuing knowledge is futile because no matter what is prophesied, what is seen cannot be changed. Humans have the inclination to try and change the future into an outcome that is more desirable; this is paradoxical because a predicted future cannot be predicted at all if it is subject to change.
This is known by Teiresias: “Of themselves things will come, although I hide them and breathe no word of them” (341). Teiresias is saying that fate will play out no matter what he, a seer, says or withholds. He is aware of the power of the Gods, especially Apollo, and respects that their word is final and true. While blind in the physical sense, Teiresias knows that attempting to alter the future will only bring anguish to an individual, because any prophesied action cannot be changed. Ultimately, Oedipus suffers because of his unwillingness to accept the predetermination of events in his life.
His mother/wife commits suicide, he gouges his eyes out, he is exiled from Thebes, and his children are left to fend for themselves. Oedipus has only brought suffering on himself by seeking out his prophecy and trying to change fate. The only use knowledge could serve would be to improve the fortune of an individual, but because changing fate is impossible, there is no use for prophecies of the future. Oedipus’s entire life had already been planned out ever since he was born, therefore he wasted his efforts trying to alter the predetermined plan of his life.
These wastes of time and effort are what cause the pursuit of knowledge to be useless, and even harmful. Knowledge is harmful to the quality of life because one will feel sorrow after realizing that fate cannot be improved. Blindness to knowledge is the best way to ensure a high quality of life. Only through innocence is one allowed to see only the notion of free will and thus feels empowered within his or her own life. In short, knowledge is a burden to human life because humans are inclined to use this knowledge to profit, which ultimately fails.
This failure brings sorrow and helplessness into human lives, and brings no benefits. Oedipus the King communicates the ease of ignorance, the repercussions of knowing one’s fate, and the wasted effort of altering destiny. While prophecies can provide an individual with purpose, one can find evidence in Oedipus’s failures that knowledge of the future can only bring an unnecessary fixation on something that cannot be controlled. The subsequent sorrows that ensue exemplify the burden that knowledge brings to human life.