The Curse Of Cupid: Antigone's Downfall

The Curse of Cupid: Antigone’s Downfall

What is the saying, love conquers all? Such a simple saying, yet it invokes all sorts of meanings. If it is such a good thing that love conquers all, why does the phrase have “conquers” in it to give it a bad connotation? However, that saying is not the purpose of this essay. This essay is written to discuss the relationships between certain characters in the Greek play Antigone, written by Sophocles, and how their love for one another effects the story. Going back to the first statement, it does not matter whether this type of love is good or bad, rather its effects on the characters in Antigone. Going on even further, you will see that love comes in all shapes and sizes and doesn’t have to be all giggles and rainbows. Let’s now begin the actual essay and get this talk of philosophical lines done with,

shall we?
At the beginning of the story, we are first introduced to Antigone and her sister Ismene who are talking about burying their brother Polyneices. From this short conversation we get, we can tell that Antigone and Ismene have a friendly sister rivalry but truly love each other. Even when Antigone says, “Go away Ismene: I will be hating you soon, and the dead will too, For your words are hateful,” (Prologue. 77-79), we are shown that Ismene is not affected by her sister’s profound words. She even speaks up saying, “You are unwise, But a loyal friend to those who love you,” (Prologue. 83-84). When we later see Antigone and Ismene together, Ismene is not only trying to be there for her sister, but decides that if Antigone should die then she should die too. Through their shared dialogue, we see Antigone care for her sister as much as Ismene cares for her, although Antigone’s way of showing it is well hidden. Their shared love for each other effects Ismene as she now has to share the punishment with Antigone, albeit at a lower sentence.
We move on to the love between Antigone and Haimon which was not shown with their interactions with each other, unless you count the scene with him and her body, but with their own individual reactions to it.

However, we do not really see if Antigone really loves him, but we should not assume she doesn’t. We just do not have any have any textual evidence to support it. We do get textual evidence that not only is Haimon in love with Antigone, but he is deeply and truly in love with her. We do not see this at first when we are first introduced to Haimon, who is having a conversation with his father Creon. As a result of his love for Antigone, this conversation eventually turns into an argument and Haimon rushes out to Antigone’s burial site to see his beloved. When Haimon walks into her chamber and finds Antigone, he feels grief for his recently departed beloved. The Messenger even says that, “Haimon lay beside hers, His arms around her waist, lamenting her, His love lost under ground.” (Exodus. 960-962). Consequently this makes Haimon try to murder his father, but we will discuss this in more detail in the next

paragraph.
Thus we move to the final, and perhaps the most tragic of all the character’s relationships which is the relationship between Haimon and Creon. They actually have a very father-son love relationship at the beginning. Therefore, when Haimon is trying to get Creon to release Antigone, he tries to keep the situation calm. This does not work in the end and we see the cracks in their relationship start to form. They are still on good terms, not great, but this argument affects Haimon enough to go see Antigone. What he finds at the her chamber is something that breaks Haimon and Creon’s relationship. What was once love has evolved into hate for his father. Therefore, when Creon walks into the chamber and sees his son, Haimon lunges and tries to kill Creon. This event is discussed by the Messenger who states that, “He said not a word, Staring--- And suddenly drew his sword back, And lunged.”(Exodus. 968-970) The development of Haimon’s death consequently causes Haimon’s wife Eurydice to commit suicide. Creon is deeply affected by all of these events and could barely handle it.
The effects of love run deep into this play. It could be argued by some commentators that it is the main theme of this story. We could even go back to point at the beginning of the essay. In this story, love does indeed conquer all. Love caused Ismene to try to share in Antigone’s fault. Love caused Haimon to at least attempt to convince Creon to change his mind. Love caused Haimon to try to kill his father. Love even caused Antigone to try to bury her brother, which ultimately caused the events of this story to take place. Therefore, the line that would more accurately describe this play is, “love giveth, and love taketh away.”