Hamlet and Antigone both strongly followed in what they believed. There is a lot of death that is involved in both of these stories, which makes them very similar in many ways however that do have their differences as well. Hamlet and Antigone were both highly upset about the way that the death in their families was handled. In each play they both try to avenge the deaths. Their decision making process in avenging the death of their family members is not all that clear because they have to be careful about what they do.
In Antigone, Antigone is being accused of the burial of her brother which she did and Hamlet would rather commit suicide than deal with all his families imperfections. In both plays, they are challenging the ideas of life and death. Antigone was being accused of doing something wrong, which was burying her brother after Creon had announced him dishonor. In Hamlet we know that he poisoned the tip of the sword so even the slightest knick would kill him. If we look at how both of these stories started, the two uncles Claudius from Hamlet and Creon from Antigone had both committed crimes against their families. In Act I of Antigone, Creon says
“ –Polyneices, I say, is to have no burial: no man is to touch him or say the least prayer for
170 him ; he shall lie on the plain, unburied; and the birds and the scavenging dogs can do with him whatever they like.
This is my command, and you can see the wisdom behind it. As long as I am King, no traitor is going to be honored with the loyal man. But whoever shows by word and deed that he is on the side of the State,––he shall have my respect while he is living and my reverence when he is dead.” Antigone did not find this just at all, so she decided to give him the proper bu...
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...y bear the sorrow they would feel and it would also be emotionally draining. Antigone knows that she could possibly die throughout her planning and at the end when she is caught and is ready to die Antigone gives us
“This death of mine is of no importance; but if I had left my brother lying in death unburied, I should have suffered”
Antigone from the moment she knew she was going to bury her brother was willing to die. Actions from both of these characters not only led to their deaths but the deaths of others, when Antigone killed herself, Creon’s son Haemon and Eurydices killed themselves out of sorrow for Antigone. Ophelia drowns after falling from a branch, Hamlet kills Claudius and Polonius, Laertes and Gertrude were mistakenly killed by the poison. Each action of Antigone and Hamlet weighed not only the outcome of their lives but of the people around them.
The two plays, "Antigone" and "Julius Caesar" both contained two very similar characters. In Antigone the nobleman, Creon, claimed the thrown after his nephews, heirs to Thebes killed each other in battle. Assuming that the populous was going to find him inadequate he laid a strict rule in order to keep the people under his control. Creon wanted Thebes to prosper and grow and was willing to do anything to achieve this. Through a chain of events Creon killed his entire family.
In Sophocles' Greek tragedy, Antigone, two characters undergo character changes. During the play the audience sees these two characters' attitudes change from close-minded to open-minded. It is their close-minded, stubborn attitudes, which lead to their decline in the play, and ultimately to a series of deaths. In the beginning Antigone is a close minded character who later becomes open minded. After the death of her brothers, Eteocles and Polyneices, Creon becomes the ruler of Thebes. He decides that Eteocles will receive a funeral with military honors because he fought for his country. However, Polyneices, who broke his exile to " spill the blood of his father and sell his own people into slavery", will have no burial. Antigone disagrees with Creon's unjust actions and says, " Creon is not strong enough to stand in my way." She vows to bury her brother so that his soul may gain the peace of the underworld. Antigone is torn between the law placed against burying her brother and her own thoughts of doing what she feels should be done for her family. Her intent is simply to give her brother, Polyneices, a proper burial so that she will follow "the laws of the gods." Antigone knows that she is in danger of being killed for her actions and she says, "I say that this crime is holy: I shall lie down with him in death, and I shall be as dear to him as he to me." Her own laws, or morals, drive her to break Creon's law placed against Polyneices burial. Even after she realizes that she will have to bury Polyneices without the help of her sister, Ismene, she says: Go away, Ismene: I shall be hating you soon, and the dead will too, For your words are hateful. Leave me my foolish plan: I am not afraid of the danger; if it means death, It will not be the worst of deaths-death without honor. Here Ismene is trying to reason with Antigone by saying that she cannot disobey the law because of the consequences. Antigone is close-minded when she immediately tells her to go away and refuses to listen to her. Later in the play, Antigone is sorrowful for her actions and the consequences yet she is not regretful for her crime. She says her crime is just, yet she does regret being forced to commit it.
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.
To be in the National Junior Honor Society, one must have good citizenship and character. I seek to be a part of this society because it is a great honor and shows not only to others, but also to myself, how hard I have worked throughout my years at Northvale Public School. I take part in school activities and have helped my teachers, so
knew full well that what she was doing was wrong. She knew that if she buried
..., is the faulted factor in the situation. As was explained before, Antigone states that her death “is of no importance” and that the important factor is the denial of a proper burial for Polyneices (“Antigone” 1035 Line 70). The rhetorical devices she uses in her argument improves its overall persuasive strength.
Antigone is determined to bury her brother because of her loyalty to her family and to the gods. She believes that no mortal, such as Creon, has the right to keep her from her own. Even if Antigone must die during the burial, she will not disgrace the laws of the gods. She believes that she has to please the dead much longer than she has to please the living.
Having already been through public disgrace, when her own father, Oedipus found out that he was to fulfill a prophecy; he would kill his father and marry his mother, and this caused Antigone to be full of resentment toward her city. Both of her brothers die in a battle and, Creon, the king of Thebes forbids the burial of one of her brothers, Polynices. This must have driven Antigone to follow her moral law. Considering the love she had for her family as well as her God, she felt that you react upon morals not upon the laws of man. That morale law was to honor her brother and give him the respectful and proper burial that he deserved just as her other brother was given. The love she had for her family was the only thing she had left to honor. Ismene, Antigone’s sister was more fearful of the king’s law then the way her heart was leading her. Her values were slightly distorted.
The Antigone is widely thought of as the tragic heroine of the play bearing her name. She would seem to fit the part in light of the fact that she dies doing what is right. Antigone buries her brother Polynices, but Creon does not like her doing that one bit. Creon says to Antigone, "Why did you try to bury your brother? I had forbidden it. You heard my edict. It was proclaimed throughout Thebes. You read my edict. It was posted up on the city walls." (Pg. 44) Antigone buries her brother without worrying about what might happen to her. By doing this, she takes into consideration death and other consequences for burying her brother. Antigone follows what she thinks is right according to the gods. She is the supporter of her actions in the burial of Polynices.
There are many similarities and differences between Antigone by Sophocles and Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The adults in both of the books have the difficult job of controlling the actions of the younger characters. Their decisions have a crucial effect on the outcome of the books, for the younger characters that they guide are the main figures in their stories. Antigone’s King Creon and Romeo and Juliet’s Prince Escalus and Lord Capulet share but also have unique strengths, weaknesses, leadership qualities, and crisis-managing techniques.
Early in the play, Antigone felt dying for her brother was a noble action. Death to her was not an ending, but a new beginning in a better place. Antigone’s family had been cursed for ages; death was something that followed at their heels. The people of Thebes would always look at her with suspicious eyes. Her father, Oedipus, had caused these looks to be placed on her family forever. Then her brothers killed one another on the same day; her life in Thebes was not good. With such a bad life in Thebes, an honorable death must have looked very appealing to Antigone.
In the plays Antigone and the Crito the two lead characters, Antigone and Socrates, showed completely different ideas regarding their responsibilities to the State. Antigone believes in divine law and does what she thinks that the Gods would want her to do. Socrates, on the other hand, believes that he owes it to the State to follow their laws whether he thinks they are right or not.
Antigone if she is caught. As the play moves on there is a building of this fear and pity that is felt for many of the characters that finally is resolved at the catastrophe. At that point the reader learns that Creon, the king, has lost his wife, his son, and his niece Antigone, all because he was too stubborn to give in as well as to afraid that if he did give in that he would be judged as an easy king. In a way this ending brings the two emotions together. The reader feels pity for Creon because of his great loss, but at the same time he feels a bit of fear because he wouldn’t want this type of tragedy to ever occur in his life.
For one thing they both are grieving over a loved one and it is this grief that propels them onto their path of challenging their uncles in their respective plays. Antigone just lost both her brothers, but she did not get closure with Polynieces and so she is still grieving over him, and that is part of the reason she defies her uncle, King Kreon, by burying him. Hamlet just lost his father and is still grieving when his mom moves on and marries King Claudius, so when Hamlet saw the ghost his still grieving heart pushed himself to challenge his uncle as well. Another way they are similar is that they have a one tract mind and they do not worry about the consequences, especially for their loved ones, of their actions. Hamlet was rude to everyone he cared about, especially Ophelia who killed herself partly because he was nasty to her, just because he was upset at the whole situation. Antigone was mean to her sister because her sister did not feel as strong about the situation as she did, and she also gave no thought as to how her defying her uncle would affect his son, her fiancé, which partly led to his suicide. A third way they are similar is that they both let their spiritual beliefs weigh heavily on their actions. Part of Hamlet’s indecisiveness is due to the fact that he does not know if killing Claudius is justified in God’s eyes. Part of the reason Antigone wants Polynieces buried is due to the fact that
Thesis Statement: In order to fight for justice, the similar background and stubbornness lead both Antigone and Brutus to death. On the other hand, whereas Brutus rebels for the sake of people with supporters and respect, Antigone fights for her loyalty to family by herself throughout entire tragedy.