Persuasive Essay On Antigone

Maryam Quraishi

Dr. Cody

September 12, 2016

Antigone

In the play Antigone, by Sophocles, readers are encountered with quite an anomalous situation involving the death of Antigone’s brother, Polyneices. Polyneices was related to Creon too, the King of Thebes, however, Creon labeled him as a traitor for fighting against the city and punished him for his actions by declaring that Polyneices will not receive a burial. Having heard this, and watching her brother lay on the ground as a meal for birds and dogs, Antigone cannot resist offering her brother the burial he deserves, even if that means going against Creon’s laws and receiving death as a punishment. This is where the conflict of the play lies; Creon represents political laws whereas Antigone

While Antigone was performing this sacred tradition, she knew the consequences at the back of her mind, but continued with the burial process anyway. She didn’t do it because she wanted to prove a point to Creon, or for her own selfish needs, but in fact because giving Polyneices a burial is the right thing to do in a moral world. She did it for the unreasonable reasons, reasons that cannot be explained because they are beyond rational explanation. She goes on to justify her deed by telling Creon “..all your strength is weakness against/ The immortal unrecorded laws of God. They are not merely now: they were and shall be,/ Operative forever, beyond man utterly” (208). Antigone feels the laws of the gods have higher value and are more important than the laws Creon has set fourth for the city, especially when it comes to her own family. Her mind was made up and nothing, not even her own death sentence could change it. When she’s forced to encounter Creon, Antigone’s pride does not allow her to feel the slightest guilt. She goes on to tell him that “This death of mine/ Is of no importance; but if I had left my brother/ Lying in death unburied, I should have suffered/ Now I do not.” Her belief in the laws set by the gods are far more important than a death sentence

Sophocles creates a subplot that reemphasizes the main conflict, or rather duplicates it when Creon is confronted by Haimon. Crean invokes fidelity and tries to invoke a moral obligation from Haimon by asking him “Have you come here hating me, or have you come/ With deference and with love, whatever I do?” (216). One would say how cynical of him? Indeed, because between these lines is where the irony lies. Crean expects Haimon to perform his duties as a son as after all, it “is what a man prays for, that he may get/ Sons attentive and dutiful in his house/ Each one hating his father’s enemies” (217). Crean recognizes moral obligation but what he fails to recognize is that this is the same obligation he denies Antigone. The fact that Creon thinks it’s fair enough for Haimon to put his father first, but not okay if Antigone chooses to put her brother’s needs first, I think it is quite hypocritical of him. However, this moral obligation does not yet open Creon’s eyes to the moral obligations that are bestowed upon him by the Gods. In fact, he is so proud to admit to his error that he goes as far as accusing Teiresias, the blind prophet, by feeling sorry for “when a wise man/ Sells his wisdom, lets out his words for hire!” (232). He accuses him for saying such words out aloud to him for money. Instead of taking his wise advice, Creon mocks him and