Antigone Conflict Essay

Politics is an extremely divisive topic, and the opposing sides rarely can see things from the other’s point of view. In Antigone, Sophocles perfectly creates a scenario where both characters in a conflict are right in their own way but refuse to see it from the other’s point of view. Ismene, Antigone’s sister, is the living embodiment of this conflict. Ismene, being pulled in both the direction of helping Antigone (religion) and obeying Creon (law), illuminates the foolishness of acting rashly without fully considering both sides and views.

Sophocles first shows Ismene’s smart opposition to stubbornly sticking to certain beliefs through Antigone’s actions towards and conversation with Ismene. In Ismene’s conversation with Antigone in the opening scene, Antigone’s unrelenting belief that her

In the final act of the play, Antigone commits suicide while Ismene remains completely unscathed. This is Sophocles’s most direct evidence that Ismene’s conflict allows her to survive the horrors surrounding her. Her conflict has made it so she did not act rash and commit a crime and also made it so that she had to take time to think about what she was to do, which ultimately saves her. Also, Creon eventually realizes that he has been stubborn in his incessant use of law and tries to right his wrongs, but both his wife and son die because he was too late. Creon’s realization parallels Ismene’s conflicted nature throughout the whole story. While Antigone never sees Creon’s point of view, Creon finally understands hers, exactly like Ismene’s opinions of both sides, but due to his actions before he cannot fix what he has done. Ultimately, Ismene is the only character left untouched by the tragedies at the end of the story (at least untouched by fault), as opposed to Creon and Antigone, which shows that considering two conflicting ideas can result in a more rational or successful