Antigone: Free Will and Destiny

others, in that no individual can make completely individual decisions, and therefore, no one is truly free. Nowadays, fate is a subject often rejected in society, as it is seen as too big, too idealistic, and too hard to wrap a persons head around. However, at the time of Antigone, the concept was a terrifying reality for most people. Fate is the will of the gods, and as is apparent in Antigone, the gods' will is not to be questioned. Much of Sophocles' work focuses on the struggle between human

  The Damning Prophecies in Oedipus, Antigone, and Agamemnon        Oracles, seers, and prophets are used in Greek tragedy to provide foreshadowing for the audience and characters. The seers' wisdom is conveyed through the pronouncement of oracles or prophecies. They confer forecasts to principal characters that affect the characters' future. Although not always believed, and often endeavored to be foiled, seers, oracles, and prophets in Greek tragedies foretell

The play Antigone, composed by Sophocles, informs us that fate cannot be controlled by anyone. Fate is an essential part of many tragedies. As for the characters in Antigone, their fates end up being unavoidable, whether it is due to the reason that they refused to accept it until it was very late, or they accepted the fate and permitted it to come to pass. The character’s lives possess set conclusions, and there exits some clues on what these conclusions shall be, and when they shall happen. The

Humans can attempt to avoid a certain fate but if destinies are fixed they cannot be altered. Sophocles supports the notion that free will eludes us in works such as Oedipus the King and Antigone. Oedipus, Creon, Antigone, and Tiresias are characters in these epics whose lives represented the battle of truth and wisdom. Oedipus attempted to escape the prophecy in which he killed his own father and married his mother. He hastily discovered his past while trying to cure his city, and his efforts to

romance. However the ancient Greeks recognized fate as an inescapable reality that shaped their lives. The famous playwright, Sophocles, adopts the idea of fate in his plays to control the character’s actions. In both plays, “Oedipus the King” and “Antigone”, the writer uses the concept of fate to show human’s inability to conquer the will of the gods. Through revealing his fate, Oedipus desperately tries to escape his reality. He flees his kingdom and tries to live a new life, yet while doing so he

Maeve Moynihan Miss Stokes English II 24 September 2014 ANTIGONE In Antigone written by Sophocles and translated by David R. Slavitt, Antigone decides to risk her own life to be able to bury her brother in a respectful way in which she thinks is right. Antigone had an enthusiastic determination about it, approached it without regret, and also choose her destiny and her sisters. Her father’s fate was a big affect on if she was going to precede with burying her brother or to no give him the respect

Antigone is a major character and a key contributor to the tension throughout the conflict and impacts the play’s conclusion, influencing the audience perspective with her personality and actions. In the beginning of Sophocles’ play, Antigone is perceived as an outcast who is not to be associated with and was rejected among the people in the land of Thebes. Although Antigone exhibits good personality and morals, her past is crucial to the development of the play and impacts her portrayal to the people

actually exercising free will. He, like Zeus with Sarpedon, had it in his power to choose a path that would lead to survival. However, he chose the path that led to death, and died in the way he was fated to. The Iliad asks the question that Antigone presented as well, are our choices predetermined to facilitate destiny and free will is merely an illusion? Each of aforementioned works was written in the age of Greek antiquity. The Iliad was written in the 8th century B.C. Antigone and Oedipus Rex were

discusses fate vs free will in his plays. In the play Oedipus Rex there was a prophecy that Oedipus was destined to kill his father and marry his mother, he attempts to escape his destiny by running away to Thebes where he meets his fate. In the play Antigone, that main character Antigone decides to go against Creon’s (her uncle who has inherited the throne) decree and bury the brother, Polynices, knowing the consequences would lead to her death. In Sophocles’ plays Oedipus Rex and Antigone, the theme

The story Antigone, written by a very well know Ancient Greece tragedy playwright by the name of Sophocles, follows Oedipus’s daughter Antigone as she makes the choice to bury her brother, Polynices. After the death of Oedipus and his sons, Polynices and Eteocles, Creon is crowned the new ruler of Thebes. However, before Creon had been crowned and made the new ruler of Thebes, the brothers had encountered war and conflict. Both had been slain on the battlefield, with Polynices left to the dogs because