Is Ignorance Truly Bliss?

In the Greek tragedy, Oedipus Rex, by Sophocles, the value of ignorance is explored. From the day he was born, Oedipus was kept in a bubble of ignorance, protecting him from the difficult truths he would have to face in his life. Although blinded from the consequences of his actions, Oedipus actively aimed to clear his ignorance and learn the truth about himself. As the iconic Kylie Minogue once said, “we’re just trying to find ourselves in the storms we chase”. While unsatisfied with not knowing the complete truth about himself, ignorance truly was bliss for Oedipus as he was literally sleeping with his mother, AND killed his father. Due to Oedipus’

tragic flaw of hubris, he thought that he could defy the gods’ prophecies, which he was rudely awakened to by his quest for the truth. Talk about a rough moment when he found out the truth of his actions and his rose colored glasses over his eyes disappeared and two gold pins gauged them out. Even though the malcontent Oedipus craved the truth, once he found it out he wished he’d never known. Ironic, right? Who would’ve thought that a prophecy from birth would come to fruition? Oedipus comes full circle by beginning as figuratively blinded and actively going against it, to then literally blinding himself as an independent choice. Oedipus can definitely relate to the song, Amnesia by 5 Seconds of Summer. I know he wishes he “could wake up with amnesia”.

While ignorance served to be blissful for Oedipus, the main characters in Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro, received a sense of clarity from their lifelong ignorance of their purpose. Similarly to Oedipus, the characters in Never Let Me Go were kept ignorant in regard to their

lives. However, Oedipus was aware of his predetermined fate, whereas the characters in Never Let Me Go were sheltered from the truth. Also as Oedipus did, the two main characters, Kathy and Tommy, actively questioned what information they were being told, and searched for answers throughout the entirety of their lives. Where their story differs from Oedipus’ is that Kathy and Tommy gained mental clarity from answers they had been craving and wondering their whole lives. While Kathy, Tommy, and Oedipus could not alter their fates, they all searched for the truth behind their ignorance. Ignorance for Kathy and Tommy however served as a life hindrance and made them oblivious to the actuality of their lives and society.

Ignorance was also widely exhibited in the amazing novel, The Color Purple, by Alice Walker. In this novel, two types of ignorance were shown: educational ignorance, and ignorance of the truth. In regard to the first type of ignorance, the educational limits the main character, Celie, faced were unimaginable. It was explicitly shown a plethora of times how uneducated Celie was via the grammar and spelling in her letters. This wasn’t to say she didn’t attempt to educate herself, but being a black woman in an abusive household in the early 1900s was not exactly an environment where educational opportunities and encouragement flourished. Celie’s

ignorance to the reality of life was also shown in her writing as she would use a lot of euphemisms for terms regarding difficult situations. When her father would rape and impregnate her, she didn’t refer to it as “being pregnant”, but referred to it casually as the multiple times when she “got big”. Celie was sadly completely aware of these terrible occurrences where she was taken advantage of and abused by her father, and the lack of ignorance could not provide any bliss for her. Similarly to Celie, Oedipus had children with one of his parents. However, there is a MAJOR difference between these two situations. Oedipus and Jocasta’s relations were completely consensual and both parties were aware of what they were doing, actively wanting children. Celie’s experiences were the complete opposite, as she was made “hopeless and broken”. She was regularly unwillingly raped and abused by her father, and both of the times she fell pregnant with his children, her father stole and sold children to live with other families. Another truth that Celie was ignorant to was the status of her sister, Nettie. Celie struggled with the fact that her once best friend of a sister was no longer communicating with her. Little did she know that her

abusive husband, Albert, was hiding Nettie’s letters to Celie. Upon reading all the letters from her sister, Celie learned that Nettie was living with the family that was raising Celie’s children on a missionary trip in Africa. The ignorance of Nettie’s whereabouts as well as the mystery surrounding her children’s lives was all cleared up by Nettie’s letters. The weight of grief and longing fell off of Celie’s shoulders when her ignorance disappeared, further displaying how ignorance was not blissful in Celie’s case.

Ergo, all three pieces referenced have contradictory conclusions on if ignorance truly is or isn’t blissful. Depending on the situation, ignorance can provide a sense of “what I don’t know can’t hurt me” as shown in Oedipus, but can also engulf entire lives and create a longing for the truth as shown in Never Let Me Go  and The Color Purple.

While ignorance did prove to be blissful for Oedipus, I would much rather avoid the situation in the first place by being aware of my own identity rather than have my actions result in a rather disturbing psychoanalytic theory. Sorry Oedipus, the truth hurts!

Also I apologize for the odd formatting! When I publish everything messes up :(