Antigone more like Antigo-loyalty Antigone's loyalty and stubbornness lead her to make irrational decisions eventually causing her death. Sophocles’s Greek tragedy, Antigone, shows how acting on emotions can lead to negative consequences and suffering. Throughout the play, Antigone keeps steady with her beliefs and always does what she thinks is right. Antigone's strong loyalty to her family and to the gods, as well as her stubbornness bring upon an early death. This shows readers that acting on emotions, especially negative ones, always have consequences. Antigone's loyalty clouds her judgement causing her own downfall and eventual demise. When Ismene decides not to help Antigone bury their brother she says, “Go your own way; I will bury …show more content…
Antigone's loyalty knows no bounds, shes aware that the consequence of her actions is death and yet she commits the crime anyways. Antigone is connected to her brother through more than just simply love, they are connected through blood. Since most of her family has already perished, leaving her with little to no one, she feels that she owes it to Polyneices and to the rest of her family to give him a proper burial, so that they may be together in the afterlife. This is important because through her act of loyalty to her brother, Antigone shows readers that loyalty is good but it must stop at a certain point. Antigone is not only loyal to her brother, but she's also loyal to the Gods. While talking to Creon she says, “I did not think your edicts strong enough/To overrule the unwritten unalterable laws/Of God and heaven, you being only a man” (138). Antigone believes that the Gods law is stronger than Creon's and no matter what the consequences are she’ll always stay true to them. Throughout …show more content…
She goes against Creon's laws, burying her brother, because of her loyalty to her own blood and her belief that there is a higher power at work that she must to adhere to. Her stubbornness causes her to not realize what might truly happen to her despite the warnings given by her sister. Many people of Greece are loyal to their family and to their Gods, Sophocles shows them that while this is necessary they must also show loyalty to themselves. The majority of them are stubborn as well and are quickly taught through Sophocles's work that they must have an open mind and be willing to change their
She protects her dead brothers’ honor as she disobeys the laws of King Creon. She feels that the gods are the only ones who have a say on the burial of a person as stated, “I did not believe your proclamation had such power to enable one who will someday die to override God’s ordinances” (Sophocles 497-500). She is brave, passionate, and full of fury; she is strong and determined enough to do what she feels despite the laws of the land. Ismene, who is Antigone’s sister is more of the conservative, law-abiding, bow down to men type of woman, as shown by her comments to Antigone “you ought to realize we are only women, not meant in nature to fight against men” (Sophocles 70-71). Ancient Greece is a male dominated society, and Antigone knows all too well the punishment she will receive to breaking this law, when she states, “for whoever breaks the edict death is prescribed, and death by stoning publicly” (Sophocles 40-41). After being caught burying her brother, she showed her true bravery and dedication to this cause by saying to Creon “Yes, I confess; I will not deny my deed” (Sophocles 487). It infuriated Creon that a woman broke his law. Creon tells Haemon, his son and Antigones’ fiancé, “I caught her openly in disobedience alone out of all this city and I shall not make myself a liar in the city’s sight. No, I will kill her” (Sophocles 706-709). Creon wanted to put her to
Brad Moore, a famous athlete once said, “Pride would be a lot easier to swallow if it didn’t taste so bad.” In Sophocles’ well known Greek tragedy, Antigone, the main character undergoes immense character development. Antigone transforms from being stubborn and underestimated to courageous and open-minded. In reality, it is Antigone’s insular persistence that leads to her ultimate decline in the play as well as others around her. After the death of her two brothers, Eteocles and Polynices, Creon becomes the new ruler of Thebes. With this, he grants Eteocles an honorable funeral service for his brave fighting. Claiming that Polynices was a traitor, he shows complete refusal to grant Polynices a respectable and worthy service. Clearly disagreeing with Creon’s inexcusable demands, Antigone declares she will bury Polynices herself so that his soul can be at peace. Entirely aware of the consequences and dangers of this action, which include death, she goes forward vowing her love for her family. Antigone shows strength and determination towards her brother. However, her growing sense of pride leads to her downfall as she sacrifices everything for her family. Antigone develops into an admirable character in which she portrays her defiance and courage, pride and open mindedness, and sense of moral righteousness to show vital character growth as the play progresses.
In the play, Sophocles examines the nature of Antigone and Creon who have two different views about life, and use those views against one another. Antigone who is depicted as the hero represents the value of family. According to Richard Braun, translator of Sophocles Antigone, Antigone’s public heroism is domestically motivated: “never does [Antigone] give a political explanation of her deed; on the contrary, from the start [Antigone] assumes it is her hereditary duty to bury Polynices, and it is from inherited courage that [Antigone] expects to gain the strength required for the task” (8). Essentially, it is Antigone’s strong perception of family values that drive the instinct to disobey Creon’s orders and to willingly challenge the King’s authority to dictate her role in society.
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
His pride and anger becomes an obstacle and he is unable to see things for what they truly are. In an excerpt from the play Creon says, “You say – why it is intolerable – say the gods could have the slightest concern for that corpse… The hero who came to burn their temples ringed with pillars… Exactly when did you last see the gods celebrating traitors (Sophocles 319-327)?” As the uncle of Polynices, Creon is ashamed and hurt that his own nephew dared to raise an army against his own birthplace. This betrayal devastates Creon, which leads to the reader’s revelation of his many flaws and his growing disgust toward others. Joseph Tomain explores whether positive law, embodied by Creon’s policies, is subject to be overridden by some form of higher law, or the God’s will that Antigone tries to obey. In this, he states that there is not a clear answer to which one supersedes the other (Tomain). However it is clear that in the midst of Creon’s hatred, he establishes a law that goes against the will of the gods and leads to the demise of the virtuous Antigone which causes the downfall of other
Antigone was a selfless person with pride as a strong characteristic of her personality. She possibly had feelings of loneliness and anger from the way society has looked upon her family from their past. It took a strong willed person who has no fear of the repercussions to stand up to a king as she did. To make everything all the worst she stood up to a king who was her Uncle and she being a female back in those time, standing up and speaking out for herself was not heard of.
Antigone respects her blood relations, and she is driven by this to oppose the laws created by Kreon. Even though she recognizes the sin in which Oidipous bequeaths upon his kin, she refuses to abandon her brother is determined to "not be caught betraying him" (Sophocles, 58). Kreon's man made laws cannot "keep [her] from [her] own," and in this she accepts the blood line of her doomed oikos. Furthermore, Antigone justifies herself by honoring her brother above other relationships that she is capable of producing. Antigone states that she "would never have assumed this burden...if it had been [her] children or [her] husband who had died...no more brothers could ever be born- This was the law by which [she] honored [Polyneikes] above all others" (966-77). Using this reasoning, the death of Antigone’s brother means extinction of the blood line and proper burial is still needed, even if it the traitor was Eteokles. Antigone's breach of nomos is a necessary one, for the dead cannot be revived and must be honored, especially those that en...
Antigone deals with this turmoil because she tries to perform the noble act of loyalty to her brother, Polyneices, as well as her loyalty to her family. Polyneices was slain by his own brother, Eteocles, in a battle where both were killed by each other’s sword. King Creon sentenced Polyneices to be left dead and Eteocles to be given an honorable burial. Antigone is faced with the decision to let her brother, Polyneices, lay dead in the street to be scavenged by animals or to be buried in a proper and decent manner so as to be accepted by the gods. She is in a position that gives her no rights as a woman, sister, niece or future queen. Her decision to bury her brother demonstrates her loyalty to her family, the gods and to all women. Her motivation drives her decisions far more than that what the laws of state have implemented.
Antigone was a very loving and caring sister to her brother, Polynices. She had lots of respect for her brother. She refused to let her brother’s soul wander around aimlessly therefore, she wanted to bury him. However, it was against her uncle’s orders to bury Polynices but she refused to listen. Since she had so much respect for her brother, she didn’t care what her uncle’s orders were. Therefore, she was going to do anything she could to bury him, even if it meant that she had to sacrifice her life. She knew it was the right thing to do. As she says here, “I know my duty, where true duty lies,” (1.1.78).
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
Later in the conversation the reader learns that Antigone has a plan to bury here brother Polynices and that she wants Ismene to help her. Ismene is scared to do this because the new king, Creon, has issued a decree that says that any person that attempts to bury the body will be sentenced to death. The fact that Antigone is going to attempt to bury the body creates fear in the reader. They are fearful as to what will happen to
In Sophocles' Greek tragedy, Antigone, two characters undergo character changes. During the play the audience sees these two characters' attitudes change from close-minded to open-minded. It is their close-minded, stubborn attitudes, which lead to their decline in the play, and ultimately to a series of deaths. In the beginning Antigone is a close minded character who later becomes open minded. After the death of her brothers, Eteocles and Polyneices, Creon becomes the ruler of Thebes. He decides that Eteocles will receive a funeral with military honors because he fought for his country. However, Polyneices, who broke his exile to " spill the blood of his father and sell his own people into slavery", will have no burial. Antigone disagrees with Creon's unjust actions and says, " Creon is not strong enough to stand in my way." She vows to bury her brother so that his soul may gain the peace of the underworld. Antigone is torn between the law placed against burying her brother and her own thoughts of doing what she feels should be done for her family. Her intent is simply to give her brother, Polyneices, a proper burial so that she will follow "the laws of the gods." Antigone knows that she is in danger of being killed for her actions and she says, "I say that this crime is holy: I shall lie down with him in death, and I shall be as dear to him as he to me." Her own laws, or morals, drive her to break Creon's law placed against Polyneices burial. Even after she realizes that she will have to bury Polyneices without the help of her sister, Ismene, she says: Go away, Ismene: I shall be hating you soon, and the dead will too, For your words are hateful. Leave me my foolish plan: I am not afraid of the danger; if it means death, It will not be the worst of deaths-death without honor. Here Ismene is trying to reason with Antigone by saying that she cannot disobey the law because of the consequences. Antigone is close-minded when she immediately tells her to go away and refuses to listen to her. Later in the play, Antigone is sorrowful for her actions and the consequences yet she is not regretful for her crime. She says her crime is just, yet she does regret being forced to commit it.
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
The notion of honor and justice is prevalent throughout all types of literature. In Greek culture, honor is essential for creating a solid foundation within a society and family. Honor will follow you until the day you perish, and beyond. The honor for men in Greece is spiritual in that loved ones show respect to the deceased by giving them a proper burial. Nevertheless, when a man acts upon betrayal of the city, that man looses the privilege to die in such honor. This is evident in the life of Antigone when her two brothers, Polyneices and Eteocles, both die at each other’s hands at war when deciding the ruler of Thebes. Polyneices cannot have a proper burial, because the new king, Antigone’s uncle, Creon created a law that decrees that anyone who tries to give Polyneices a proper burial will have a dire consequence: death. In Sophocles’ Antigone, the quest that Antigone endures to stay true to her pure intentions of honoring Polyneices by giving him a proper burial is in juxtaposition with the fact that her defiance towards Creon is not only to do with Polyneices, but also to show appeasement to the gods.
Sophocles formulates a believable plot through Antigone’s social conflict. The conflict in Antigone centers in Antigone needing to bury her brother because of her belief that natural law is higher than the governing law, and does not want to have the god’s fury pointed at her. It also revolves around the fact, that family is significantly greater to Antigone than that of the justice system. Polyneices, her brother, was a traitor and died going to war with his own blood brother. Creon, her uncle and king, has made a decree stating: “I here proclaim to the city that this man shall no one honor with a grave and none shall mourn. You shall leave him without burial...” (222). Opposing the king, she neglects the decree. Since she broke the king’s decree, she is sentenced to die for being disobedient; moreover, Antigone proudly states her crime. There is no sign of remorse shown by Creon as he states, “No, though she were my sister’s child, or closer in blood than all that my hearth god acknowledges as mine. Neither she, nor her sister, should escape the utmost sentence-death” (530-33). Bobrick explains that Creon values the love for his land more than he values family, and this becomes a struggle for Antigone as it becomes a fight between obeying the laws of man, and the laws of the god’s. The second struggle that Antigone faces, comes when she realizes she is alone.