In Sophocles' play "Antigone”, the ideas of obeying the law of one’s community and following ones own moral beliefs come into conflict. The plot revolves around two brothers, Eteocles and Polyneices having killed each other in an attempted to gain rule and their Uncle Creon gaining power after their deaths. He orders Eteocles given an honorable funeral and Polyneices to be left in the streets to rot. Creon believes that Polyneices' body shall be condemned to this because of his civil disobedience and treachery against the city. However, the dead brothers’ sister, Antigone, believes this unfair to Polyneices and insulting to the Gods.…
This essay is to discuss the multilayered motives that drive Antigone to action. When I read the play I believe, it is a strong sense alligence to her family, and pure anger that drives Antigone to make the decision to act against Creons law and bury her brother Polyneices. After loosing her mother to sucided, her father and her twin brothers, Antigone and her sister Ismene are the last of the Labadcus family (a royal family). The lost of so many loved ones in a short period of time begins to manifests feelings in Antigone causing her to believe that death was in her future as well.…
Antigone is by no means a flawless character. She’s often rash and overdramatic. She is essentially what prompts the main conflict of the play…
Civil disobedience is defined as a rising up against an established law in order to expose the lack of morality in the law. In Antigone it is clear that what the king was trying to do was unjust and unfair. Antigone was arrested for burying Polynices, her brother, after the king refused to bury him. If Eteocles, her other brother, could be buried with full military honors, then why could they not do the same for Polynices. Similarly in 1872 a woman named Susan B. Anthony was arrested because she "defiantly registered and cast a ballot" in Rochester, New York (Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia).…
Greek culture was expressed through many ways in the Hellenistic era. Many authors rose to fame for plays and stories. Although many know of Homer, author of the Odyssey, many most likely don’t know Sophocles. Sophocles was the author of the Theban trilogy, a collection of three plays that examined philosophical themes and Greek life. Antigone, the second play in the series, is based around a major conflict between Creon and Antigone over the burial of Polyneices. The evidence is absolutely overwhelming for the burial of Polyneices. Haemon, Tiresias, Antigone, and practically every character in the play turn against Creon at the end of the play. These characters bring out Creon’s worst traits, such as stubbornness and pride. The evidence in the play for Antigone is clearly overwhelming and shows that Creon is not fit to rule Thebes, and thus he was wrong when it came to Polyneice’s body.…
When she was questioned by her uncle why she broke the law she the law was wrong and stated “nor did I think your edict had such a force that you , a mere mortal, could override the gods, the great unwritten, unshakable traditions”( Sophocles ,1117,505). Antigone is saying that burying the dead is an important religious duty that needs to be done to respect but the gods. Creon also is aware of this because earlier in the play when one of his guards suggested that the gods buried the body he questioned why the gods would care about “a corpse” (Sophocles, 1112, 320). The main conflict in this play is the religious duty versus the law of the land. This forces Antigone to either be true to the law or true to her ethical or religious beliefs. Antigone chose standby her religious beliefs and to rebel against the unjust rules of her uncle. This ethical conflict put the whole plays plot into…
It is prevalent that citizens around the world feel the need to follow their moral compass rather than the laws their state administers. When faced with a certain dilemma that causes any citizen to choose between following his moral conscience or following the rules mandated by the state, he is prone to following the law out of fear of the consequences if he chooses not to comply. However, there are those who prove to be an exception to this assumption, those who rebel against the state due to the moral and ethical considerations man has. Greek philosopher Sophocles conveys this trait of rebellion due to morality in Antigone through the protagonist Antigone and Plato discusses the same trait by referring to Plato, both whom serve as the primary example of wrestling with civil disobedience.…
When we are introduced to Antigone she is accompanied by only her sister who then rejects Antigone’s request to bury their brother together, leaving Antigone alone in her task against a whole city of people that will obey Kreon. Moreover Antigone is a minority in the majority; in a time where women were expected to obey patriarchal society and had no medium to express their political opinions, Antigone believes in order to honor the god’s decree, she has no other option than to obey her uncle, which contributes to why she resorts to such drastic members. Also perhaps it is because, as a child of Oedipus, she feels her future is ill-fated, “Ismene . . . of all the evils that descend from Oedipus do you know one that Zeus does not fulfill for us, the two still living?” (1-4), causing her to take her future in her own hands since she is already doomed and decides to die for a worthy cause.…
Antigone is impulsive, stubborn and doesn’t let anybody stop her from what she wants to do. She was caught trying…
Antigone possesses the flaw of pride, which leads her to eventual destruction, and the destruction of others close to her. This is first proven when Antigone declares “all these would say that what I did what honorable, but fear locks up their lips. To speak and act just as he likes is the king’s prerogative” (Line 423-426). Antigone’s egotism is exposed after she pompously assumes that the others in the kingdom concur with her reasoning; this display overconfidence offends Creon, and ultimately results in her death sentence as well as the destruction of others after her death. Later in the play, Antigone states “My father...my parents...O hideous shame! Whom I now follow, unwed, curse-ridden. Doomed to my death by the ill-starred marriage…
One of the illustrations of civil disobedience comes at the actions of Antigone. For many years, civil disobedience is understood as being the right to resist government against laws that citizens believe are morally incorrect. Antigone portrays this type of defiance towards King Kreon. She, in an act of disobedience, directly violates a command put by the king, which states that her brother Polyneices will not be given a proper burial. Since Antigone strongly believes this is morally incorrect, she attempts to still give honor to her brother by burying him. Antigone`s disobedience towards Kreon`s rules is portrayed by the following quote, “You must be as you believe. I will bury him myself. If I die for doing that, good: I will stay with him,…
Moral obligation and commitment play an important role in the play. Both Antigone and Creon display unbelivable fortitude when their positions on this are questioned. Creon is willing to rob his son of his bride. His power and kingship, what Creon most values, are questioned as a result of this. Still, Creon stays commited to his punishment for…
The play “Antigone,” by Sophocles displays an interesting storyline in which the main characters Antigone and Creon undergo various obstacles due to their actions. Throughout the play, Antigone attempts to secure a respectable burial for her brother Polyneices. By choosing to protest and defy Creon’s rule, Antigone unquestionably breaks the law. However, her defiance does not seem like an act of civil disobedience against injustice because Antigone was acting in her own self-interest when considering dying for her brother.…
Antigone has a sense of universal humanity and she is willing to risk committing a crime to protect that sacred belief. "No, /Even if you were willing to "be senseless"/ I wouldn't want the help you could give. / It's too late. / You must be as you believe. / I will bury him myself. / If I die for doing that, good:/ I will stay with him, my brother;/and my crime will be devotion" (Lines 82-90). The pride of Antigone is her devotion, it is her reasoning "You must be as you believe", that lead to her crime. For Antigone it is too late, because the man in charge is "being senseless" - but also living in accord to his…
In Antigone, several characters are faced with obstacles that force them to make both good and bad decisions, including: punishment and suicide. The main character Antigone sets the stage for decision making as she chooses NOT to marry her fiancé, to burry her dead brother’s body, and ultimately in the end to commit suicide.…