Sibling rivalry has been taken to a whole new level. Brothers have been brutally murdered by one another; whose side to take? Is there a way to stay true to both of them? It is hard to grieve without the additional stress of choosing a side when there is a death in the family. Two of the closest members of a family are ripped out at an instant. At the funeral, the family notices that only one brother is there to be buried. Everyone questions this, “Where is Polynices”? Answers are not found, but then word gets through that because of his exile, Polynices, will not be formally buried, but will suffer even in his after-life. The government is not sparing anyone with the laws that are set forth. Will his lifeless body be left out to rot in the sun and be eaten by scavengers? Will anyone one stand up in respect for him; being honest to themselves and to their family as an entirety? In the Harvard Classic’s Edition of Sophocles’, Antigone, archaic grammar calls for the reader to further translate which results in different, often negative connotations and fail to provide the reader with the importance of being true to oneself and others.
The archaic grammar of Antigone mostly consists of the words: thy, thee, thou, thine, aught, and other words; including those ending in the suffixes –lst and -th. In order to get a more accurate perception of these and how they affect connotation of the text analysis of the text must be done. The reason most students do this incorrectly is because they do a sloppy job of searching for words in the dictionary or thesaurus and scribes of the old- English time period were less focused on consistency. In order to understand that being true to oneself and others is the most important factor of Antigone,...
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...ng honest to yourself and others. These are values that are often expressed in today’s society but are not upheld in the time of adversity. Antigone is a universal symbol of truth; and the only way to fully recognize this is through informed connotation. Connotation is a key factor in understanding this purpose. If the connotation is incorrect then the piece will be disfigured and opinions will not be based on the story causing purpose to be lost.
Works Cited
Sophocles. Antigone, translated by E. H. Plumptre. Vol. VIII, Part 6. The Harvard Classics. New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1909–14; Bartleby.com, 2001.www.bartleby.com/8/6/.
Baker, Peter. "The Electronic Introduction to Old English." The Electronic Introduction to Old English. Version 3rd Edition. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwel, n.d. Web. 28 May 2014. .
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.
Sophocles. Antigone. Trans. Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald. Prentice Hall Literature, Platinum. Eds. Eileen Thompson, et al. Englewood Cliffs: Simon and Schuster, 1991.
In the Antigone, unlike the Oedipus Tyrannus, paradoxically, the hero who is left in agony at the end of the play is not the title role. Instead King Creon, the newly appointed and tyrannical ruler, is left all alone in his empty palace with his wife's corpse in his hands, having just seen the suicide of his son. However, despite this pitiable fate for the character, his actions and behavior earlier in the play leave the final scene evoking more satisfaction than pity at his torment. The way the martyr Antigone went against the King and the city of Thebes was not entirely honorable or without ulterior motives of fulfilling pious concerns but it is difficult to lose sight of the fact that this passionate and pious young woman was condemned to living imprisonment.
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 compromise—they both find absolute validity in the respective loyalties they uphold.
The purpose of this short essay is to justify Antigone’s position during the story and to conduct an analysis from the other readings to defend my interpretation. I will take in consideration the similarities and differences of all three other readings Civil Disobedience, Machiavelli and Socrates.
Antigone is not a tragic play. Rather it is a theological debate spawned by Sophocles, a debate that is still raging today, the debate of who holds the higher law, the Gods or the State. While this debate has slowly twisted into Church versus State, which is a very different argument, the highest questions still remain the same: Which one is held higher in men’s (and women’s) hearts? Antigone answers this question with shocking clarity in her admission of guilt to Creon, “ I should have praise and honor for what I have
Antigone’s two purposes for giving this speech are centered on her two main audiences, Creon and the citizens of Thebes. In reference to Creon, Antigone’s purpose is to convey that even after being caught, she does not fear his power, or her punishment. She desires to show him that she stands by the justness of her actions and the injustice of her conviction. To display this, she refers to her ...
The protagonist is convincingly characterized because she is constantly determined to fight for what she believes is right. Antigone’s belief that burying her brother is the right thing to do is distinct in the drama and comes to light when Antigone, as Bobrick puts it, “proudly” admits to going against Creon’s decree when put before him and states as a fact that “religious rituals justify her actions.” Antigone is determined to bury her brother, Polyneices, no matter the consequences. Bobrick suggests that this defiance is Antigone’s “first act of self- isolation” and further explains that self- isolation and her doing what is right go hand in hand (41). Antigone views the burial of her sibling as a duty and must be completed; Lansky illustrates this with the comment that “Creon is the guardian of the honor of the polis and Antigone of that of the family” (49). Besides being convincing because she behaves consistently, the protagonist is a convincing character because the love for her brother motivates her to disobey the decree of her king to do what she believes is right. Kirkpatrick points out that Antigone is aligned with her family over the nation and that it is not an inquiry of whether to bury her brother or not but more along the lines of how (407). In “Polis and Tragedy in the Antigone”, Philip Holt says that because
Segal, Charles. Introduction. Antigone. By Sophocles. Trans. Reginald Gibbons and Charles Segal. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Print.
The characters in the play Antigone all suffer a downfall of some sort. The major characters suffer the most, though. In this short essay, I will document on how the two main characters, Creon and Antigone, both inevitably become tragic heroes.
In Sophocles' most famous Theban play consisting of two parts, "Oedipus the King" and "Antigone", both parts are necessary in understanding some of the things that happened around them, and what type of man had raised Antigone. She is the main character in the play of “Antigone”.
This is not to say that there are not conceptual issues involved in the characters of Creon and Antigone. But the issues are too complex to be satisfactorily reduced to a single antithetical formulation. We must avoid seeing the protagonists as one-dimensional representatives of simple oppositions: right and wrong, reason and emotion, state and individual, or the like (62).
Antigone believes that a woman should be intrepid and strong, even at the risk of challenging men’s authority. When she proposes to bury Polynices, Ismene answers, “we’re not born to contend with men”. (75) Antigone’s response, “that death will be a glory” (86), does not directly address gender issues, but it expresses her fury at Ismene’s passivity. After the burial of Polynices, Antigone defiantly states, “I did it. I don’t deny a thing,” while being interrogated by Creon (492) and later comments that she was “not ashamed for a moment, not to honor my brother”. (572-3) Antigone’s gallant speech and defiance toward traditional gender identities audaciously shows her revolutionary desire for gender equality.
In the play Creon goes against the Gods by making it illegal to bury Polyneices, Antigone’s brother because he is deemed a traitor. The burying of a dead body is seen as a necessity by all of Greece as it is an unspoken law of the Gods. Antigone goes to bury her brother so his afterlife will be better. She does it in spite of the law that Creon has made. “It is the dead, not the living, who make the longest demands” (192) She tries to explain to her sister, Ismene, that they must bury Polyneices, but even that close relationship has trouble because of the law. Ismene is unwilling to suffer the consequences of the law, to save her brother’s soul “Forgive me but I am helpless: I must yield to those in authority” (192) Even the two sisters who have just lost both of their brothers have different views on the matter. One will not stray from the law and what is deemed right by their king, while the other will accept any punishment, even death just to do what she believes is right.
In the following paper, I plan to discuss the source of conflict between the title characters of Antigone and Creon in Sophocles’ “Antigone”. I also plan to discuss how each character justifies his or her actions and what arguments they give for their justifications. I will also write about the strengths and weaknesses of these arguments. The final points I try to make are about who Sophocles thinks is right and who I think is right.