Antigone Deserves More Sympathy than Creon
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 crux of the play, the causal factor to all the following events is how the new King Creon deals with the dead traitor Polynices, brother of Antigone. The decree not to bury the corpse must be considered from the viewpoint of a 5th Century Athenian, watching this play. The Antigone was written during a time of great strife for the city of Athens and they were in the middle of their conflict with the Spartans. At a time such as this , concern for the city was foremost in a citizen's mind. Creon's decree not to bury him at this stage then is right. Essentially not burying a body, any body, is an offence to the gods, and the persons spirit will not be able to go down to the underworld and cross the River Styx and Archeron. However, the Greeks believed that for some the sentence was deserved. The sentence of non-burial is appropriate in this case, as the Greeks believed that "those convicted of sa...
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... of his heart. He is left as the sole survivor of his own carnage but the undeniable fact remains that without his actions, all the deaths would have been averted and he has no one to blame but himself.
Works Cited:
Murray, Robert D. Jr. "Sophocles Moral Themes." In Readings on Sophocles, edited by Don Nardo. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1997.
Segal, Charles Paul. "Sophocles' Praise of Man and the Conflicts of the Antigone." In Sophocles: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Thomas Woodard. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966.
Sophocles. Antigone. Translated by R. C. Jebb. The Internet Classic Archive. no pag. http://classics.mit.edu/Sophocles/antigone.html
Woodard, Thomas. Introduction. In Sophocles: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Thomas Woodard. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966.
Oedipus accidentally killed his father and married his mother. Because of that act, Oedipus ended up cursing his family and died a horrible death. After his death, his sons inherited his kingdom and in a power struggle ended up killing each other. One of the sons, Polynices attacked the city to try and claim power from his brother. But since both of the brothers died and the city was not taken Polynices was labeled as a traitor whereas the other brother who died defending the city was celebrated as a hero. Creon decreed at the beginning of the play Antigone that no one was to bury the body of traitorous Polynices. Antigone felt that it was here responsibility to bury the body because he was still a member of her family. This led to a huge argument with Creon who felt he shouldn’t be crossed because he was the leader of the state. Eventually both Creon and Antigone are destroyed by the gods (and by each other) through their own actions.
In the awe-inspiring play of Antigone, Sophocles introduces two remarkable characters, Antigone and Creon. A conflict between these two obstinate characters leads to fatal consequences for themselves and their kindred. The firm stances of Creon and Antigone stem from two great imperatives: his loyalty to the state and her dedication to her family, her religion but most of all her conscience. The identity of the tragic hero of this play is still heavily debated. This tragedy could have been prevented if it had not been for Creon's pitiful mistakes.
In the play Antigone, created by Sophocles Antigone is a foil to Creon because their personalities contrast. This makes Creon a Tragic Hero because he thinks that he is a god but in reality he is a mortal upsetting the god's and he will eventually meet his demise. At the start of the play the reader is introduced to a character named Creon, who is the king of Thebes, the previous king, Eteocles, was killed by his brother Polyneices. There is a law arranged by Creon, so nobody could bury the body of Polyneices but Antigone, the sister of both Eteocles and Polyneices, wants to bury her brother and is willing to risk her life to bury him. She eventually gets caught and is sentenced to death by Creon.
Woodard, Thomas. Introduction. In Sophocles: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Thomas Woodard. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966.
Sophocles. "Antigone." The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. Ed. Knox and Mack. New York: Norton, 1995.
Summing up, Antigone decides to express her discontent with what she considers to be the unethical new regime of King Creon by burying her brother's body. By taking this bold step, Antigone shows the strength that an individual’s actions hold in a democracy. Creon, with his stubborn attitude, shows how a democracy where peoples’ voices are not heard can be dysfunctional, and that laws should be made by taking other people into confidence and not on an individual basis. In the end, Antigone resolves to sacrifice her own life in the service of a greater justice. It is this kind of formidable resolve that changes the course of history, and that is something that we can respect equally in the 5th century B.C. and the 21st century A.D.
Throughout the play, Shylock was often reduced to something other than Human. In many cases, even the simple title of "Jew" was stripped away, and Shylock was not a man, but an animal. For example, Gratiano curses Shylock with "O, be thou damned, inexecrable dog!" (IV, i, 128) whose "currish spirit govern'd a wolf" (IV, i, 133-134) and whose "desires are wolvish, bloody, starved, and ravenous" (IV, i, 137-138). Or when Shylock is neither a man nor an animal, he becomes "a stony adversary, inhuman wretch" (IV, i, 4-5). When the Christians applied these labels to Shylock, they effectively stripped him of his humanity, of his religious identity; he was reduced to something other than human.
Sophocles: A collection of critical essays edited by Thomas Woodward: Oedipus at Colonus. Whitman, Cedric H. Prentice-Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. 1966.
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.
Murray, Robert D. Jr. "Thought and Structure in Sophoclean Tragedy", in Sophocles, A Collection of Critical Essays, Woodward, Thomas, editor,
The Tragic Play Antigone by Sophocles has a Conflict between religious morals and loyalty to the state and its laws. This struggle is displayed through the characters Antigone and Creon. Antigone’s life meets a tragic end in the play, but her death makes her a martyr leading to the citizens to follow her view of religion.
Segal, Charles Paul. “Sophocles’ Praise of Man and the Conflicts of the Antigone.” In Sophocles: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Thomas Woodard. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966.
with how Shylock treats him since he calls Shylock “a kind of devil” and also
evil, but he does also allow us to see Shylock as a human being who
I feel that shylock is both a villain and victim as we can see in the