It was always that way. There was the bulge and the glitter, and there was the cold grip way down in the stomach as though somebody had laid hold of something in there, in the dark which is you, with a cold hand in a rubber glove. It was like the second when you come home late at night and see the yellow envelope of the telegram sticking out from under your door and you lean to pick it up, but don't open it yet, not for a second. While you stand there in the hall, with the envelope in your hand, you feel there's an eye on you, a great big eye looking straight at you and dark and through walls and houses and through your coat and vest and hide and sees you huddled up way inside, in the dark which is you, inside yourself, like a clammy, sad little foetus you carry around inside yourself. The eye knows what's in the envelope, and it is watching you to see you when you open it and know, too. But the clammy little foetus which is you way down in the dark which is you too lifts up its sad little face and its eyes are blind, and it shivers cold inside you for it doesn't want to know what is in that envelope. It wants to lie in the dark and not know, and be warm in its not-knowing. The end of man is knowledge, but there is one thing he can't know. He can't know whether knowledge will save him or kill him. He will be killed, all right, but he can't know whether he is killed because of the knowledge which he got or because of the knowledge which he hasn't got and which if he had it, would save him. There's the cold in your stomach, but you open the envelope, you have to open the envelope, for the end of man is to know.~Robert Penn Warren, All the King's Men
Like Adam and Eve, like Pandora and her box, we want to know, even if it kills us. I thought it poignant piece.
I found your site because I was searching for my favorite quote in all of literature. Most times it is shortened to just the part that commences "The end of man is knowledge," but the full passage conveys the power of the inner battle between the desire for blissful ignorance and the compulsion to reach for enlightenment.
ReplyDeleteI first read "All the King's Men" in 1964 as part of the coursework for an engaging college class called "Religion and Contemporary Literature." I have reread it several times in my life. There is always something to discover from this masterwork of American Literature. Its richness of expression and depth of meaning is unparalleled. Your quoted passage is only one of many jewels. Do yourself a favor. Hunt it down now not later. The 2006 movie remake caused the re-publication of the original Harcourt Brace edition which is available very inexpensively on Amazon. Beware of a 2003 edition that made substantial changes to the original text that are unjustified and change Warren's meanings.