Antigone: Is She Too Loyal For Her Own Good? As Abraham Lincoln once said, “Be with a leader when he is right, stay with him when he is still right, but, leave him when he is wrong.” In this case, our leader is the relentless Antigone from Sophocles’ Antigone. She is motivated to do the right thing, even when it is what leads to the downfall of everyone around her. Her sister refuses to stand with her, and instead lets Antigone take her own path as an individual. Antigone is to blame for the downfall of everyone, due to her unwavering loyalty and her all-too-accepting attitude towards death.
Antigone is relentless when it comes to loyalty, and this is what leads to the downfall of everyone around her. This is best shown through the words of
Antigone is a young woman whose moral background leads her to go against the wishes of the king to bury her brother, Polyneices. Sophocles uses Antigone as a character who undergoes an irreversible change in judgment and as a result, ends up dying. Antigone is hero, and she stands for honor, and divinity. Because Antigone's parents were Oedipus and Iacaste, she was born into a family of power; something that she could not change. At times, Sophocles leads the reader into thinking Antigone wishes she was not who she was. Ismene, Antigone's sister, refuses to help Antigone because (as she states) "I have no strength to break laws that wer...
“The strength of a family, like the strength of an army is in its loyalty to each other.” This quote is by Mario puzo, the family. I think the meaning of this quote is “that you can never break up a family. The family is so strong like an army so it will be hard to break them up. This quote can be supported by “Antigone” because Antigone knew both of her brothers died and only one was able to be buried and honored just because he was in the military. Antigone wanted her other brother to be buried to so she did it herself. She did not want her family to be broken up like that. So she was fixing it.
King, being calm and using negotiation and logic, and Antigone being demanding and defiant. Antigone has some flaws about her, but she also has some good traits about her. One is being willing to do anything for her family. She represents a strong woman in a male dominant society as King represented a determined man in a society full of racists. She was willing to risk her life to give her brother a proper burial because that is what she believed in. In the same, King was willing to go to jail to stand up for what he believed in. However, if Antigone had followed King's steps of civil disobedience, there might not have been so much
Although undenialably couragous, determined, and brave. She has an achilles heel that makes her arrogant. She is unwilling to back off her quest, in burying her beloved brother. No matter if she must work alone and alienate herself in order to do so. To ensure she buries her kin with honor. “I will not press you any more. I would not want you as a partner if you asked. Go to what you please. I go to bury him. How beautiful to die in such pursuit! To rest loved by him whom I have loved, sinner of a holy sin, With longer time to charm the dead than those who live, for I shall abide forever there. So go. And please your fantasy and call it wicked what the gods call good”(Antigone 194). /she goes as far as breaking the law, presenting herself as a uncompromising person, similar to that of King Creon. Sadly her achilles heel is not from her doing. Other characters have influenced her into rushed decisions. For example Creon’s cruel punishments and brutality causes Antigone to want to bury her brother. Ismene’s refusal to help bury their beloved brother makes Antigone more determined and persistent to bury him. Eventually leading to Antigone’s suicide. She had hung herself, when Haemon (her love) saw her he stabbed himself and lied next to her in her pool of blood. Then when Eurydice(Haemon’s mother) found out she cut her throat in her bedroom. Creon was now alone. The chorus notes that if it were not
After her mother committed suicide, her father died and her brothers fought until they killed each other, Antigone projects her strong character with interesting ways of showing it. As the main character with strong values and a stubborn way, she follows the laws of god, without minding the consequences. Antigone is a strong willed woman who wins the respect of the audience by the inner strength and resistance of manipulation she has, showing the potential of human kind. She becomes a heroine with noble qualities of mind, heart and soul because she is willing to sacrifice her life, doing what she believes it is right. With a sense of family ties, she is an ideal for humanity, the issue is that she must burry her brother Polynices with an appropriate ceremony since she believes it is the last right for every human being.
Antigone, as a character, is extremely strong-willed and loyal to her faith. Creon is similarly loyal, but rather to his homeland, the city of Thebes, instead of the gods. Both characters are dedicated to a fault, a certain stubbornness that effectively blinds them from the repercussions of their actions. Preceding the story, Antigone has been left to deal with the burden of her parents’ and both her brothers’ deaths. Merely a young child, intense grief is to be expected; however, Antigone’s emotional state is portrayed as frivolous when it leads her to directly disobey Creon’s orders. She buries her brother Polynices because of her obedience to family and to the gods, claiming to follow “the gods’ unfailing, unwritten laws” (Sophocles 456-457). CONTINUE
Antigone is almost hailed to a god like status, as Oedipus was before her. She is extremely strong and unbelievably willing to sacrifice everything in the name of honor and pride. She so easily makes her decisions and chooses to die willingly without a second thought. The minute Creon questions her on breaking the law, she states: “Die I must, -I knew that well (how should I not?)-even without thy edicts.” What is even more is that Antigone was a woman, a woman in a time of extreme male domination. This makes her even stronger of a person in the play and shows the growing strength of the gender that we know of today.
Antigone is loyal to her family readers can see that when she says “ Their it is, and now you can prove what you are: A true sister , or a traitor to your family” ( PR. 26-27). This quote shows that Antigone is loyal to her family because she wants her sister to be a true sister like her because she is going the break the law for her brother. Antigone is also seen as loyal to the gods when she says “ That final justice, that rules the world below makes no such laws” ( 2. 57-58). Antigone is seen as loyal because she says the final justice of her being killed doesn’t matter because she did something good for the gods, so they will be loyal back to her. In the greek tragedy Antigone, Antigone has the tragic flaw of loyalty to her family and to the gods, which leads to her
...ocles, Antigone 71-74). Family love is a strong incentive to make Antigone do the things what she believes to be true. Although she dies ultimately, she at least brings honor to herself and her family.
In Antigone, Antigone is the heroine who demonstrates the qualities of loyalty and bravery. Creon, the leader of Thebes, has declared that Polyneices cannot be given the proper
Antigone shows throughout the play that she is always thinking that she must do what is best for other’s and not just herself. She is willing to do what is needed to follow the law of the gods, even if it is breaking the state law.... ... middle of paper ... ...
In Sophocles’s Antigone, Antigone recognizes her arrogance as she faces the effects of hubris before she irrationally commits suicide. Antigone’s overconfidence causes her to fatally act out in order to convince Creon that she has the power of choice over her own future. Earlier, after breaking the law declared by Creon, Antigone assumes she will be exonerated for preserving familial loyalties; however, she is proven incorrect as the King condemns her to death. While at first, she dismisses the idea of being killed for her actions, later she begins to accept her fate and even welcome it: “Look upon me, friends, and pity me / Turning back at the night’s edge to say / Good-by to the sun that shines for me no longer”
Loyalty, like most everything, is relative. This means most words can be defined differently depending on the other person and the situation. Antigone is a case and point scenario of this. Ismene believes that one’s loyalties should lie with those with higher authority and the law (or the state). Antigone believes one’s first loyalty should be to loved ones (including one’s self).
..., this sense of arrogance angers Creon to a point beyond belief. Antigone’s refusal to cooperate causes Creon to go mad with irritation and frustration. Wanting to show his sense of power, he refuses to back down in fear of losing his position. His stubbornness grows stronger as Antigone continues to disobey his commands. Antigone’s strong and steady foundation helps her show defiance. She is able to overcome the opinions of the people and commit to helping her brother regardless of the after effects. She ignores what everyone says and does only as she wants. She is powerful, both physically and mentally, and is successful in her tasks. Antigone matures into a commendable and respectable character in which she depicts her rebelliousness and bravery, pride and tolerance, and sense of moral righteousness to demonstrate fundamental character development in the play.
Within the play Antigone, we see a relationship that tests the strength of ones personal convictions. We quickly learn that the dominant figure is a catalyst to her flawed characteristics. During this time, the cultural bias insinuated that women were the weaker sex and they were immediately given the title of inferior within any relationship. Even though Antigone herself is viewed as the inferior partner in the relationship, she demonstrates how the inferior does not always submit to the dominant character. Antigone’s defiance of Creon’s ordered decree is the actual evidence of an inferior partner having the ability to oppose the superior. “I will bury him myself. And even if I die in the act, that death will be a glory. I will lie with the one I love and loved by him – an outrage sacred to the gods! I have longer to please the dead than please the living here: in the kingdom down below I’ll lie forever. Do as you like, dishonor the laws the gods hold in honor.” (pg 655) In doing so Antigone and Creon’s relationship eventually causes their own characteristics to become fatal flaws.