Divine Law In Sophocles Antigone

The concept of divine law versus the human law is a prominent theme in the Greek play, Antigone. Sophocles creates the epitome of the inferiority of a king to reinforce the fact that monarchs will always be secondary to the Greek divine powers. Due to Creon’s unhealthy obsession and grip on personal power and his complete disregard of the divine law and fate, he later fails not only as a ruler but as a father and husband. Evidence of the superiority of religion can be encountered when Antigone rebels Creon’s orders in order to bury her brother’s corpse, when Teresias, the Chorus and his own son warns Creon about his decisions and how the Gods will reciprocate and when the people and the chorus unite to defend Antigone since her actions were only to protect and maintain the divine law. In the story, Antigone’s two brothers, Eteocles and Polyneices have killed

Even Creon, although he wants to resist and continue to fight for what he believes is right, he knows better than to fight fate. Everyone learned this lesson from Oedipus’ mistakes. The Chorus, at first, were in Creon’s side due to the fact that she had disrespected the Head of the State, however, after Teresias’ warning, The Chorus changes their opinion and mentions how perhaps the burial was the will of the gods. The Chorus and the people learned to empathize Antigone, and she was a source of inspiration and realization that no matter how powerful a person is, they are defenseless against the almighty gods. Antigone’s approach to death is almost fearlessly as she is unwilling to live in a world where the word of a man is means more than the word of the gods. “God forbid it e’er should please… and yet how otherwise had I achieved a name so glorious as by burying a brother? … Where they not gagged by terror, Manifold a king’s prerogatives, and not the least that all his acts and all his words are laws.” (497-506,