Kreon Themes In Antigone

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[M]y explicit orders concerning/It’s Kreon. The way he’s treated our brothers. Oedipus’ sons: Eteokles, who died/Hasn’t he buried one with honor? fighting for our city, […] will be given the rituals/But he’s shamed the other. Disgraced him! and burial proper to the noble dead./Eteokles, they say, was laid to rest But his brother—I mean Polyneikes, who/according to law and custom. returned from exile utterly determined/The dead will respect him in Hades. to burn down his city, […] revel in kinsmen’s blood,/But Polyneikes’ sorry body can’t be touched. enslave everyone left alive—/The city is forbidden to mourn him or bury him […]. as for him, it is now a crime for Thebans/That’s the clear order our good general to bury him or mourn him./gives …show more content…

One on side is Antigone, representing piety and faithfulness to the gods and their traditions; on the other side is Kreon, representing human authority and faithfulness to mortal law and its traditions. Contributing to the piety, human authority tensions are the personal and legal views of Antigone and Kreon, among other figures in the …show more content…

They don’t. (313-320) He uses his own perspective to twist the common view of piety for his own uses. Not only that, but he even states that “Zeus enforces his own will through mine” (335). Kreon places his own personal views onto the gods themselves, contributing to a trend that continues to this day. Part of the tension introduced by the concept of piety is the conflict between the rule of the gods and the rule of human law. Antigone, again, represents the rule of the gods, while Kreon represents the rule of human law. Each of them believe in the primacy of their own law perspective over the other. Antigone believes in the gods’ authority above all else. She believes in the rituals that satisfy the gods, and that it does not matter who or what the person was prior to his or her death, but that “Hades will still expect his rituals” (563). She appears to believe that one person’s successes or failings in honoring the gods affects everyone, not just those in question, which explains her actions. In valuing the gods’ authority over humanity’s, Antigone completely rejects Kreon’s authority as a king: I deny that your edicts—since you, a mere man, imposed them—have the force to trample

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