Antigone: an Assessment of Antigone’s and Creon’s Deeply Held Beliefs and Views on Familial and State Responsibilities

The first specification for the tragic hero is one of the few that both Antigone and Creon exhibit; both characters are between the extremes of perfect morality and pure villainy. Antigone’s moral neutrality is illustrated through her noble intentions and the unorthodox way she acts upon them. When she is confronted by Creon and demanded to give an explanation for her disobedience, Antigone says, “For me it was not Zeus who made that order. Nor did that Justice who lives with the gods below mark out such laws to hold among mankind” (Sophocles 207 ll. 450-2). Along with love and loyalty to her brother, Antigone is largely motivated by her desire for justice and appeasement of the gods. While her intentions are noble, Antigone’s actions in the

In the Greek play Antigone writer Sophocles illustrates the clash between the story’s main character Antigone and her powerful uncle, Creon. King Creon of Thebes is an ignorant and oppressive ruler. In the text, there is a prevailing theme of rules and order in which Antigone’s standards of divine justice conflict with Creon’s will as the king. Antigone was not wrong in disobeying Creon, because he was evil and tyrannical. The authors of “Antigone: Kinship, Justice, and the Polis,” and “Assumptions and the Creation of Meaning: Reading Sophocles’ Antigone.” agree with the notion that Antigone performs the role of woman and warrior at once. She does not only what a kinswoman would, but also what a warrior would do.

The outstanding play “Antigone” written by Sophocles introduces how Antigone can reveal the honor within a family. “Antigone” produces a tragic hero, which is Antigone because of her pride and imitation of action.

Antigone is a play written by Sophocles. The genre of the play that Sophocles wrote was based on tragedy. It is one of the first plays that use tragedy. In the play a young girl named Antigone, stands up against her uncle Creon who is the king. She stands up for her rights, so that she can give a religious burial to Polynices. She was a girl with a lot of will power. This essay talks about the relationship between Antigone and Creon. This essay would contain paragraphs where there would be comparisons between Antigone and Creon’s Relationship.

The play “Antigone” is a tragedy by Sophocles. One main theme of the play is Religion vs. the state. This theme is seen throughout the play. Antigone is the supporter of religion and following the laws of the gods and the king of Thebes, Creon, is the state. In the play Creon has made it against the law to bury Antigone’s brother, something that goes against the laws of the gods, this is the cause of most conflict in the story. This struggle helps to develop the tragic form by giving the reader parts of the form through different characters.

Sophocles’ Antigone is a Greek tragedy that transcends 5th century BC Greece due to its complex analysis of justice and integrity. In the case of Antigone and Creon, it is not clear who in the end is suffering from injustice. In Creon’s defense, Antigone is the one committing unjust acts according to Theban law. As the king of Thebes, it

The play Antigone, written by Sophocles, is a tragedy about Antigone, who defies the king’s order of her brother’s burial after. She shows her strength by using morality and the laws from the gods, not Creon. He is the new king, who became hungry for power and was being obstinate to everyone that wanted to just do what is open-minded. However, characters like Haemon, acts as a foil character to him and wants to do what’s right and just, brings out Creon’s tragic flaws of stubborness, and advances the plot with his conflicts relating to the king.

“Zeus did not announce those laws to me. And Justice living with the gods sent no such laws for men,” (508-510) said Antigone with frustration towards Creon about the act of her burying her brother, even though it was against the law. Antigone’s words, actions, and ideas contrast with Creon’s character to the point of these two characters having conflicting motivations. These conflicting motivations cause the characteristics of stubbornness, disrespect, and anger to be highlighted within Creon’s character. Ultimately, these conflicting motivations develop Creon as a tragic hero by finding in himself that he is wrong about what should have been done with Polyneices’ corpse and the character interactions advance the plot and/or develop the theme by keeping a conflict between Antigone and Creon about who is right.

The play Antigone by Sophocles is a play like no other. There are three major themes or ideas which have a very important role in the play. The first major theme is fate, on how the play comes about and the turn of events that come about throughout it. Another main theme or idea is the pride the characters have and their unwillingness they have to change their minds once they are set on something. The last major theme is loyalty and the practical problem of conduct involving which is a higher law between the divine laws and those of the humans. It is an issue of which law is the "right" law, and if Creon and Antigone's acts are justifiable or not. The issues that Antigone and Creon have between them

In the play, Antigone, written by Sophocles, King Creon of Thebes sentences his niece, Antigone, to death for burying her brother, Polyneices, even after the act had been declared a crime. Like father, like son, Creon expected his son, Haemon to follow his decisions and agree with him, wholeheartedly. Haemon, however, did not agree with the death sentence given to his beloved fiancée. The conflicting opinions of father and son reveals not only the theme of pride in the play, but how this pride affected Creon’s interactions, as well as how choices made from those interactions directly lead to his tragic downfall.

Antigone is a play by Sophocles which embellishes the rivalry between Creon who stands for the state values and Antigone who stands for family values, the start at the end of a battle between Polyneices and Eteocles, brothers of Antigone and Ismene. The two siblings kill each other, and this makes Creon new king of Thebes. Moreover, Creon gladdens trueness above anything else, and he cannot stand disloyalty or watch at the state rules being broken mainly by a woman. Contrarily, Antigone cherishes personal conscience and love for her brother which transcends state laws irrespective of any situation that befall her. Antigone’s incredible brevity makes her deserve our admiration for her resolve and determination, (Goheen, Robert F page 45).

The conflict among individuals or among a person and a group of peoples possessing a given power has always been existed in each society. As many generations have read the renowned Greek play Antigone written by Sophocle, the conflict between Creon and Antigone, which finally not only causes the misery death of the female hero character but also leaves the grief for the tyrannical King, can be considered in various patterns from religion and politics, to command and persuasion, or rigidity and flexibility, and not limited to a gender struggle. When Antigone raised to oppose to Creon’s ordain, the fact is obvious that to prevent the collision, a mutual agreement does not simply come from the same perception, but a condition in which each side has been put in to a reasonable and resolvable state, thus be the core of the play. The complexion making Antigone a tragedy performs its fundamental principle as a lack of justice through chains of dramatic events. This interaction between Antigone and Creon has to be transparentized under a deep thinking toward three remarkable dimensions of justice: devine judgment, harmony, and natural law.

Often unaware to the reader, a story is routinely viewed through a particular lens. Our society has shaded minds to read tales through a black and white spectrum, but frequently the big picture of a story can be missed because it lies hidden within the gray area. Fairytales have influenced their apprentices to always look for a hero and a villain; however, similar to the real world, theses lines between “right” and “wrong” become indistinguishably skewed. Sophocles’ Antigone is not to be viewed through the eyes of morality because together hero and villain lie within the motives of both the play’s main characters. Simon Goldhill asserts that “it is difficult, in other words to read Antigone without making not only moral judgments, but the sort of one-sided moral judgments that the play itself seems to want to mark as leading to tragedy”, but this frame of mind must be actively fought against. The “gray area” type of mindset through which this play must be filtered is established in the assertion that conformity brings peace, but conflict brings progress. The complexity of Sophocles’ writing pleads with its readers to carefully analyze the text a second, third, or even fourth time in order to grasp the ideologies of the author in their fullest extent. This paper serves to promote such an analysis through the careful examination of the actions of Creon and Antigone, as well as the means by which Sophocles develops his “gray area”

In the heat of battle two royal brothers fall, for the fate of Thebes hangs in the balance. The cause for this mayhem is because of simple childishness. When the prince's father, Oedipus, instructs his sons to take turns on the throne Eteocles refuses to step down for his brother, so in turn the other brother, Polyneices, attacks Thebes. In the war, the uncle of Eteocles and Polyneices, Creon, decrees that no one shall bury Polyneices or else, due to his treason against his home city. Antigone then makes a decision that shall emerge multiple times throughout the play, citizenship vs. family loyalty. Antigone chooses to bury her beloved brother, believing that the laws of gods over those of men, causing her to later become trapped in a tomb by the orders of Creon. Creon’s decision wasn’t without opposition, for his own son, Haimon, asked him to go with the wishes with the people and let Antigone go. Even the oracle Teiresias suggests that he releases Antigone! Without heeding the warning Creon continues the imprisonment of Antigone, and causes her to kill herself. After the death of Haimon’s fiancee, Antigone, Haimon kills himself, and after his mother discovering his death she kills himself. Then Creon sees the error of his ways and shows a common trend in the actions committed by the characters, family loyalty versus citizenship. Although this message is throughout much of Sophocles’ plays it is extremely prominent in Antigone, and this paper is going to illustrate such.

Sophocles and Jean Anouilh use simplistic storytelling in order to discuss the events and societal norms of the times when they were writing Antigone. When the tales are stripped down to their key stories, they both are about a defiant girl who goes against her uncle in order to do what she believes is morally right. In regard to the definition of tragedy, Sophocles follows the Greek standard of tragedy. By making Creon the tragic hero who is plagued by his own ego and unchanging ways when it comes to power. Anouilh puts a twist on the Greek tragedy by putting the focus on Antigone and not having the typical tragic hero who is unattached from the audience. Instead, Antigone is a heroine with everyday imperfections and emotions which seek to inspire people to condemn the French’s relationship with Nazi Germany during the Second World War.