The opening events of the play Antigone, written by Sophocles, quickly establish the central conflict between Antigone and Creon. Creon has decreed that the traitor Polynices, who tried to burn down the temple of gods in Thebes, must not be given proper burial. Antigone is the only one who will speak against this decree and insists on the sacredness of family and a symbolic burial for her brother. Whereas Antigone sees no validity in a law that disregards the duty family members owe one another, Creon’s point of view is exactly opposite.
He has no use for anyone who places private ties above the common good, as he proclaims firmly to the Chorus and the audience as he revels in his victory over Polynices. He sees Polynices as an enemy to the state because he attacked his brother. Creon’s first speech, which is dominated by words such as “authority” and “law”, shows the extent to which Creon fixates on government and law as the supreme authority. Between Antigone and Creon there can be no compromisethey both find absolute validity in the respective loyalties they uphold.
In the struggle between Creon and Antigone, Sophocles’ audience would have recognized a genuine conflict of duties and values. From the Greek point of view, both Creon’s and Antigone’s positions are flawed, because both oversimplify ethical life by recognizing only one kind of good or duty. By oversimplifying, each ignores the fact that a conflict exists at all, or that deliberation is necessary. Moreover, both Creon and Antigone display the dangerous flaw of pride in the way they justify and carry out their decisions.
Antigone admits right from the beginning that she wants to carry out the burial because the action is glorious. Antigone has a savage spirit; she has spent most of her life burying her family members. Creon’s pride is that of a tyrant. He is inflexible and unyielding, unwilling throughout the play to listen to advice or Antigone. Creon’s love for the city-state cause him to abandon all other beliefs. He tries to enforce this upon the people of Thebes. He wants them to think that his laws should be followed before any other personal, moral, or religious belief.
This is where the conflict of character occurs between Antigone and Creon. Antigone knows that the sacred laws held by heaven are far more important than those made by a king. It is the danger of pride that leads both these characters to overlook their own human qualities and the limitations of their own powers The Chorus is made up of older men of the city. Some of the times the Chorus speaks in this drama, it seems to side with Creon and the established power of Thebes.
The Chorus’s first speech (117-179) describes the thwarted pride of the invading enemy: The God Zeus hates bravado and bragging. Yet this encomium to the victory of Thebes through Zeus has a cunningly critical edge. The Chorus’s focus on pride and the fall of the prideful comments underhandedly on the willfulness seen in Antigone and will see in Creon. In Creon’s first speech, where he assumes the “Now here I am, holding all authority and the throne, in virtue of kinship with the dead” and reiterates his decree against the traitor Polynices (191-192).
In lines 308-309 the Chorus says to Creon “My lord: I wonder, could this be God’s doing? This is the thought that keeps on haunting me. The Chorus is questioning Creon if it could be the doing of God who buried Polynices, Creon replies; “Stop, before your words fill even me with rage that you should be exposed as a fool, and you so old. For what you say is surely insupportable when you say the gods took forethought for this corpse” (310-313). Even though Antigone exhibits a blamable pride and a hunger for glory, her disobedience is less serious than those of Creon.
It is evident that Antigone’s actions are driven by a love for her brother, and a desire to please the gods. While Creon’s actions are founded in his quest for more power and complete control over the city of Thebes and its people. Antigone’s crime harms no one directly, whereas Creon’s mistakes affect an entire city. We learn from Teiresias that new armies are rising up in anger against Thebes because of Creon’s treatment of their dead. More important, Creon’s refusal to bury Polynices represents a more radical insult to human values than Antigone’s refusal to heed Creon’s edict.
Creon says at the beginning of the play that the sight of Polynices’ unburied corpse is an obscenity, but he clearly doesn’t understand the implications of his own words. “You shall leave him without burial; you shall watch him chewed up by birds and dogs and violated” (224-226). Whereas Antigone breaks a law made by a particular ruler in a particular instance, a law that he could have made differently, Creon violates an unwritten law, a cultural must. Creon goes forward, prepared to do what is necessary to right his wrongs. However, as is often the case in life, he does not repent soon enough.
In the aftermath, he is left with the deaths of three people, all of which he caused. He is left to remember all the things he could have done differently, and that is possibly the worst punishment of all. Ultimately, King Creon learns his lesson, but it is a hard lesson and one that brings down everyone around him. Perhaps he, himself, says it best. “Lead me away, a vain silly man who killed you, son, and you, too, lady. I did not mean to, but I did. I do not know where to turn my eyes to look to, for support. Everything in my hands is crossed. A most unwelcome fate has leaped upon me” (2044).
Nevertheless, my sympathies are most likely tipping toward Antigone in this encounter. Just before the argument between Antigone and Creon, the sentry gives a vivid and disgusting description of the disinterment of Polynices’ corpse. Polynices’ rotting body is the physical evidence, or perhaps a symbol, of the injustice of Creon’s decree and of the ruin it will bring about in Thebes. The description of the squalor of the corpse prepares the audience to be sympathetic to Antigone’s arguments, even as she flies in the face of law with a pride that easily matches Creon’s.
Antigone draws a distinction between divine law and human law, between the “great unwritten, unshakable traditions” and the statute of individual rulers such as Creon. Each of Antigone’s actions was admirable, in the interest of her brother and the gods. She buries her brother without worrying what might happen to her. However, Antigone debated over the issue of whether to bury her brother or not. In the end she ultimately decided that her life was not as valuable as making sure her brother rests in peace. She was only trying to please the gods whereas Creon was working directly against the will of the gods.
With each viewpoint located at opposite ends of the social spectrum, a dilemma is unavoidable when the two face each other. This is the backbone for the entire plot of Antigone. On one side is Antigone, who pursues her self-righteous beliefs whole-heatedly and without question. On the other side is Creon, who acts in response to what he believes are best for the society. Both characters are justified in their behavior. It is their motives that set them apart from each other. Antigone knows that she will suffer personal anguish if she does not carry out her actions.
If my husband were dead, I might have had another, and child from another man if I lost the first. But when father and mother both were hidden in death my brother’s life would bloom for me again” (959-962). Antigone was unable to complete the three stages of womanhood: she is not a daughter because her parents are dead, she won’t be a wife, and she won’t be a mother. Because of this she believes that her motive is one that should be accepted and that the love for a brother could never be viewed as foolish. Creon, on the other hand, makes his decisions as a king rather then an uncle.
He is concerned with keeping the city-state in order, and his public perception untarnished. He cannot let feelings like love and kindness for Antigone prohibit him from ruling a nation. Both Antigone and Creon believe the gods support their positions. Antigone believes that by Creon denying Polynices a proper burial, he is denying him a right granted by the gods. “The time in which I must please those that are dead is longer than I must please those of this world. For I shall lie forever You, if you like, can cast dishonor on what the gods have honored” (86-89).
She believes that he will not be granted life after death if he is not buried, and that the gods permit all a chance at immortality. When speaking to Antigone it seemed that the Chorus was siding with Creon: “You went to extreme of daring and against the high throne of Justice you fell, my daughter, grievously. ” “.. it is your own self-willed temper that has destroyed you” (901-903, 920-921). However, despite her disobedience to Creon, Antigone is the tragic hero in this play she exploited high standing morals, good intentions, and a high rank.
With both characters assuming religious approval for their actions, it is impossible to exploit any mistakes that may exist within the two viewpoints, making a conclusion that much more difficult. Throughout the play, each character rattles off the reasons for their actions. Both also justify their actions religiously, believing they are the ones acting accordingly by the gods. The entire plot is a construction of conflict between personal and social motives, a scene not uncommon in today’s society.
Sophocles attempts to answer the debate by ultimately showing that the gods approved of Antigone’s motives and that Creon should have buried his nephew. But with so much unnecessary bloodshed committed at the end of the story, it is impossible to believe that this is the final decision. Sophocles believed that the individual held the power and the state shouldn’t have total control over an individual. This is hardly a solution to the debate, the fact that everyone dies. Rather, it is a sign that the debate will live on for all of eternity.
