Essay on Antigone

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”.

In part one of Antigone, Oedipus, who was a shepherd's adopted son, solved a riddle from a sphinx, was rewarded by becoming king over Thebes, and then became wed to the previous queen. This happened without the knowledge of the queen, Jocasta, being his widowed mother. Through his reign they bore four children, two boys and two girls. Of these children were Eteocles, Polyneices, Ismene, and Antigone.

It was not until a plague infected his city that he summoned a seer, only to find out that he was the cause of it by his relations with his wife/mother. He then questioned his father, who adopted him, and discovered the truth about how he was abandoned as a baby by his natural parents after a seer had foretold that he would kill his own father.

Even though the parents attempted to stop this tragic event from occurring, there was no way to avoid it. For on his travels, he met along the road, a party of men that were traveling as well, but they could not agree on whom had the right of way. This caused a brawl to break loose and many of the men died. Oedipus realized, after speaking with Jocasta, that by this description, that one of the men in the traveling party was really his birth father as well as king, which he had slaughtered by his own hands!

By this discovery that they were so closely related, Jocasta was so distraught that she hung herself, and upon finding her dead body, Oedipus stabbed out his eyes with her ...

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Eurydice, the wife of Creon and mother of Haemon, overheard the conversation, went silently into her room, and committed suicide. All that was left of the royal family was Creon, who was left to grow old and insane until the time his own death had come.

The heroine of this story is the fearless and honorable girl, Antigone. She acted more motherly than sisterly, always seeking honor and caring for her fallen family. The villain would be the king, Creon, who was increasingly more concerned about his own personal authority and welfare. He thought of himself as the supreme ruler over the city and felt that all people should obey him in all things, great and small, just and unjust. Only God, Himself, should have this honor!

Works Cited

Greek Tragedies; Volume 1, second edition

Translated and edited by David Grene

University of Chicago Press 1991