Summary:
Explains the reasons behind Antigone's actions in Sophocles's play "Antigone".
Keywords: Greek tragedy
Her father committed suicide. Her mother committed suicide. Her two brothers killed each other in a battle for the kingdom. Her uncle, Creon, took the throne and decided to give one of his dead nephews, Eteocles, an honorable funeral and give the other, Polynices, nothing at all. He also made it clear that no one was allowed to as much as touch Polynices. Should anyone decide to try to take action against the law and bury him, they were punishable by death. Was Antigone supposed to have simply accepted the fact that she was to abandon her dead brother out in the open? Was she expected to leave his dead corpse outside the gates of Thebes exposed to the world to rot and be picked at by the birds? How could she do such a horrible thing to her own brother? The answer is simple: she couldn't.
Antigone was plainly not capable of standing by and watching her brother be condemned even after death. Why should one of brothers receive a proper funeral while the other receives humility? They were both fighting against each other for a common goal. Both wanted to take the throne and become the king of Thebes. There was no difference between the two brothers' ideas. The only thing that set them apart from each other, in Creon's view, was that Polynices was outside of the Theben gates when he was killed, whereas Eteocles was on the inside. How is it just if two brothers are fighting each other for the same reason but one receives an honorable funeral while the other is left to be eaten by vultures? Antigone had many reasons for taking the action that she did.
Polynices was Antigone's brother. She loved him dearly and would have done anything for him, which she did, just as she would have done anything for other members of her family. She loved all of her family. She also firmly believed in right and wrong, just and unjust. Creon's law was not only senseless, but it was mainly unjust. There was no reason to treat the two brothers differently after their deaths. Of course, he was punished in the end for his cruel and insensitive ruling. He believed he had more power than he actually had.
"That order did not come from God. Justice,/ That dwells with the gods below, knows no such law. / I did not think your edicts strong enough / To overrule the unwritten unalterable laws / Of God and heaven, you being only a man." (p. 138) It was Antigone's firm belief that one should obey the gods' laws before man's laws if they should ever conflict. That is exactly why she contravened Creon's unjust law forbidding anyone to bury Polynices. According to the gods, it is essential to bury the dead so that their souls may make their way to the Underworld. Polynices did nothing different from his brother, therefore he should receive the same burial rights as Eteocles.
Antigone loved her brother. She could not bear to allow his body to lie in the open and rot. It was the unjust law of Creon that she resisted, but it was the just law of the gods that she abided by. "Guilty of their transgression before God / I cannot be, bor any man on earth. / I knew I would have to die, of course, / with or without your order." (138) She was willing to give her life just so that her brother's soul may continue to the Underworld. She accomplished her goal.
Works Cited
Sophocles. "Antigone." Trans. E. F. Watling. Three Theben Plays. London: Ed. Penguin Group. 1947.
This is the complete article, containing 605 words
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page).
