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‘Subject’
Thinking Critically with Drama- Antigone
Antigone is a tragic play written by Sophocles in or before 441 BCE. Although it is the last of the Oedipus trilogy, Antigone was written first and bagged the first prize at the Dionysia festival. The play deals with a female protagonist who acts against the order of the king, and in the process meets her untimely death. The conflicts between the two main characters Creon and Antigone, is a powerful human struggle, which is still relevant as it was during that day. It is a struggle of an individual against the establishment. Antigone by defying the order of the king, as a citizen places more importance on her personal beliefs and ideals over the established law of the land. Through the characterization of Antigone, Sophocles conveys the theme of an individual’s right to disallow the establishment to infringe on her choice to perform a personal obligation.
The play is centered on the conflicts between a family’s need for mourning and the state’s political needs. The setting is an ancient kingdom, where a civil war has been waged and two brothers are died in the fight. Antigone, Oedipus’s daughter, wants to have a decent burial for her brother Polynices, who was left to rot in the sun, by the decree of King Creon. Creon sees this as a fit punishment for him because he acted against the state. Antigone buries her brother’s corpse in defiance of this order and is incarcerated for her crime.
Creon tries to persuade Antigone to renounce her crime, but she stands by what she had done and thus, is given the punishment of death. In the end, Creon resents his punishment and tries to overturn it, by then it is too late as she hangs herself to death and Creon’s son, who was betrothed to her, also takes his own life. Hearing the news of her son’s death Eurydice, Creon’s wife too dies, and the story ends with Creon repenting his deeds and praying for death.
Sophocles has used the characters of Antigone and Creon to represent the divine law and human law. Antigone with her unconditional love for her family stands for divine law and Creon as a King stands for human law. Creon believes that his law should be enforced for the welfare of the city. Punishing the person, who acted against the government, will send a signal to all other rebels about the fate that awaits them if they follow suit. So, he as the ruler is willing to forgo ancient customs for the welfare of the city.
“The man who keeps his house in hand,
He’s fit for public authority.
I’ll have no dealings
With law-breakers, critics of the government:”
Antigone, on the other hand, argues that her dead brother deserved to be given a fair burial, and it was her duty to her family. She was willing to take on the establishment to fulfill her duty towards her family. In Ancient Egypt, it was considered to be a woman’s duty to bury her family members. So, leaving her brother unburied would mean that Antigone has not just defied the laws of God, but also has let down her family.
The character of Ismene holds great significance in the conflict between Creon and Antigone. She acts as the obedient follower of the law, and is used by the author to show the other side of the predicament of Antigone’s family. Ismene asks the dead to forgive her as she has to yield to authority. So, even though she accepts her brother deserves a fair burial, she thinks obeying the laws of the society is more important. While Antigone decides that her duty to her family is worth dying for, Ismene thinks obeying the establishment is her foremost duty both, as a citizen and as a woman.
“We are only women,
We cannot fight with men, Antigone!
The law is strong, we must give in to the law”
The language and the tone of Ismene, a minor character, help us in understanding the main character, Antigone. Her character elucidates what happens when a person is filled with passivity and defeatism. Her predicament is enhanced by being a woman, as she lived in a society, which frowned upon women with independent thought and who defied the patriarchal rules. Thus, her character makes Antigone’s character stand out, who had the courage to fight for what she believed.
The stone tomb, to which Creon condemns Antigone, acts as a significant symbol in this play. The tomb symbolizes Antigone’s fate, which are silence, invisibility and death. It also signifies the other characters, the chorus, Ismene and the citizens, who are enslaved to the system and, in effect, are imprisoned within an invisible stone tomb.
Creon’s decree stated that anyone who tried to bury Polynices would be stoned to death, but he changes his order to entomb Antigone alive. Now he has committed a double sin against Gods – first by not giving burial rites to Polynices and then by trying to bury Antigone alive. The tomb also denotes that Antigone’s loyalties lies with the dead, her mother, brothers and father.
The drama entirely relies on the characterizations of Creon and Antigone, who act as each other’s foil. Creon’s character works as an appropriate counterweight to Antigone’s obsessive energy. They both have an unreasonable and stubborn resolve, and refuse to budge from their moral positions. She is obsessed with religious fanaticism, while he is filled with blind chauvinism. They are both marvelous and terrible in their own right.
Creon and Antigone share many similarities in their characterization. Both have deeply ingrained values and principles, and are willing to go to any length to uphold these values. Both receive counsel, Creon from Chorus and Antigone from Ismene, but they fail to pay heed to it. They also, at one point of time, question their own resolve and the principles on which they based their earlier actions. In the end, both end up in isolation, Antigone through her own death and Creon through the death of his loved ones.
However, they differ in what they perceive to be the right thing. It is a perfect case study of ‘theory of relativism,’ according to which, what is good for one person may be the complete opposite for another. They both thought they did the right thing and therein lies their conflict.
“your words
Are distasteful to me, and I am sure that mine
Seem so to you. And yet they should not seem so:”
The tussle between Creon and Antigone is ultimately a matter of choices and consequences. The structure of the play, which describes the actions of the protagonists followed by a detailed justification of their action, conveys that both sides have merit in their arguments. Creon is bound to his duty as a king while Antigone is bound to her duty as a sister. They have the free will to choose the path they deem fit and the consequences of these choices are decided by fate/Gods.
Though these two characters seem to be operating out of free will, they are indeed pressurized by the demands of their position/conscience. Antigone is under the pressure of her duty towards God and family, and Creon has the pressure of his job as a king. They both base their actions on what they perceive to be logical choices, and both of them fail to listen to counsel and act without thinking of consequences. If they had listened to the advice given by those around them, the tragedies could have been averted, but it would have involved sacrificing their pride and giving up a little of what they are.
In the end, there is no clear winner in this individual vs. establishment struggle. Antigone dies and Creon is reduced to an unhappy and lonely man. They both stand up for what they believed till the end. While burying a family member is an individual right, restoring order to the city is a king’s duty. Both Creon and Antigone have justifications for their actions.
In essence, the play is a scrutiny of complex human emotions and actions. Each of the protagonists represents a moral angle and valid arguments, and so, the play can be interpreted in either way. However, the fact that Antigone stood up for what she believed, even defying the established rules in the process, stands testimony to her strength of character and for this reason, she embodies the criteria of a stubborn hero unbent by authority .
Works Cited
Lefkowitz, Mary R and Mass Wellesley. "Influential women." Cameron, Averil and Amélie Kuhrt. Images of Women in Antiquity. New York: Routledge, 2013. 49-64. Print.
Love, Karen. Lies Before Our Eyes: The Denial of Gender from the Bible to Shakespeare and Beyond. Bern: Peter Lang, 2005. Print.
Merchant, David Michael. "Antigone." Masterplots, Fourth Edition (November 2010): 1-2. Web. ISSN: 9781587655685.
Sjöholm, Cecilia. The Antigone Complex: Ethics and the Invention of Feminine Desire. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004. Print.
Sophocles. Antigone. 441 BCE. Pdf.
Ziolkowski, Theodore. The Mirror of Justice: Literary Reflections of Legal Crises. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2003. Print.
