Oedipus Rex And Antigone Character Analysis

Greek theater encompassed many aspects that reflected the moral values and ideals of society. Their customs were tightly woven into the scripts of plays. Antigone and Oedipus the King, two renowned works of the Greek playwright Sophocles, explore these values through a plot thick with corruption, virtue, and determination. These plays reveal the burdens two Theban kings, Oedipus and Creon, as their lies and poor judgment corrode the integrity of their city, their families and themselves. Possessing a strong faith in their respective gods, the characters of these Greek plays are often led astray as they try to escape the twisted hand of fate, further warping their perception of reality. As their vain

Antigone was a Greek tragedy that ended in Antigone’s death along with her brother’s. In the beginning of the of the tragedy we learn of her brother’s death “Creon buried our brother Eteocles with military honors, gave him a soldier’s funeral, and it was right that he should; but Polyneices, they fought as bravely and died as miserably, they say that Creon has sworn No one shall bury him,” (LN 15-20). King Creon’s decision for not giving Polyneices a proper burial is because he was a traitor. However, that was Antigone’s brother and she felt besides Polyneices actions, he still deserved a burial. Antigone has lost her parents and just has her sister Ismene left so, despite the order handed down by Creon, Antigone feels that it’s still appropriate to give her brother a proper burial.

“Zeus did not announce those laws to me. And justice living with the gods below sent no such laws for men. I did not think anything which you proclaimed strong enough to let a mortal override the gods and their unwritten and unchanging laws.” (lines 508-513) Antigone’s character contrasts with Creon’s character causing the two to have conflicts. These conflicts bring out anger, disrespect, and unreasonableness in Creon’s character.

If you want to determine a person’s real character, give them authority and power. Fear and violence are truly powerful feelings that can change a person forever. People in power positions abuse their power by creating fear and violence in their community.

As individuals we grow, we magnify our knowledge, augment to our experiences, learn from our mistakes, heed the advice of others and mature into someone we can be proud of. As children, we look to others older than us to pave the way for us and educate us about life. Nevertheless, when we reach the state of adulthood, we should be able to give advice and take advice just as easy. As the years go by not only do we age, we get wiser. Being wise means being able to make a sound decision by incorporating experience, knowledge, and good judgment. One cannot be wise and arrogant. This essay explores the tragic downfall of the characters in the play Antigone, by Sophocles as a result of their inability to rely on their wisdom and their determination to remind arrogantly.

It can be assume that violence is one of the main themes in Greek literatures. It is portray in different forms through executions, suicides, murders, and self-mutilation. Although violence is mainly intertwine together with wars in Greek literature and is shown in a positive light, it can be tie in with punishment and suffering. Violence is necessary because it helps to explain the characters’ situations and problems through their defiance of the authority of the gods or the king in Sophocles’ plays, Oedipus the King and Antigone. Oedipus and Jocasta have try to escape their prophecy in which they are blinded by the truth of their situations and in order to resolve them Oedipus physically blinds himself and Jocasta commits suicide. Antigone

According to Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries, determination is the quality that makes you continue trying to do something even when this is difficult. Determination is a trait that people must choose to have on their own. One person cannot make another be determined about anything. “Self-determination, as a psychological construct, refers to volitional actions taken by people based on their own will, and self-determined behaviour comes from intentional, conscious choice, and decision” (Hue and Tsang 1). Determination is a good quality for everyone to have; however, when someone has an excess amount of determination this can be a tragic flaw. This is what happens in the three Greek plays; Oedipus Rex, Antigone, and Medea. In Oedipus Rex, he is determined to find out who killed his father and who caused the plague over the town. ‘Lady do you know that man, whom just now we summoned? Is he the one this man speaks of?’ (Oedipus Rex 48). Since Oedipus continues to inquire information about his father he finally learns the truth that he killed his father, caused the the plague over the town, married his mother, and had children with his mother. This causes him to stab his own eyes out. In Antigone, she is determined to bury her brother. She continuously talks about doing it until she finally does. She even tries to recruit the help of her sister. ‘Look will you join me? Will you work with me?’ (Antigone 2). When Antigone finally “buries” her brother or sprinkles dust over him, she becomes banished and is locked away in a cave to spend the rest of her days. In Medea, she is determined to get revenge on her ex-husband, Jason. To get revenge she decides to kill her children and his new wife. ‘The bride, poor bride, will accept the curse of the gold, will accept the bright diadem. Around her yellow hair she will set that dress of death with

Oedipus and Antigone both suffer from tragic flaws which leads to their ruin, even though they show it in different ways. Antigone shows her tragic flaw on several cases, for example, in her reaction to Ismene’s justification as to why they should not raise difficulties to Creon’s order not to bury Polyneices: “… Leave me my foolish plan: I am not afraid of the danger; if it means death, It will not be the worst of death-death without honor”. (prologue, 80)

Sophocles is a famous Greek mythology writer, who wrote two of the most tragic plays: Oedipus the King and Antigone. The end of Oedipus the King was the beginning of Antigone. Oedipus the King is one of the strongest tragic Drama as it tells a serious story which evokes fear and pity through incidents that put sympathetic characters in threat and Oedipus the tragic protagonist (the king) who suffer more than he deserved. Although, Antigone resemble Oedipus the King in many faces such as it is a tragic Drama, also it has two tragic protagonists, Antigone and Creon. Both of Antigone and Creon showed traits of immoral and both ended up with a tragedy terminus as a consequence of their pride.

As James Hillman, an American psychologist, once said, “We return to Greece in order to rediscover the archetypes of our mind and of our culture. " Ancient Greece’s culture helps us to learn about the culture of our lives in current times, as well as the values that were held in past times. Greek culture and the values that the people of ancient Greece held can be very imperative to us today and can be seen through many works of literature. In the plays Oedipus Rex and Antigone many common Greek cultural values are seen, such as the importance of the gods, the belief of supernatural beings, and the idea that women are less significant than men.

Women have been silenced for generations upon generations, their voices of reason stripped away and locked inside the caves of submissiveness. The key is thrown out into a vast ocean of misery and peril, and the hope to break free slowly diminishes. Yet, there are always those women who will never accept their expected place in society. These women try to break down those barriers in attempts to leave an imprint on this ever- changing world. In civilizations such as Athens, women were looked down upon and this battle to leave behind tradition proved to be almost if not fatal. Sophocles ' Oedipus the King and Antigone exemplify three distinct female Athenian characters who approach this battle with different fronts. Through analysis of Ismene, Antigone and Jocasta’s distinct characters, the reader better understands how Sophocles uses a feminine voice to break away from the tradition discerned in Athenian life to advocate for the rise of a matriarchal influence.

When Teiresias asks in Antigone (line 1051), "What prize outweighs the priceless worth of prudence?" he strikes (as usual) to the heart of the matter in Sophocles' Theban Plays. Sophocles dramatizes the struggle between fate and free will, in one sense, but in another sense the drama might be better understood as the struggle between the will of the goods (which it is prudent to follow, according to Teiresias) and man's will (which is often imprudent). Sophocles' characters are moved by their own wills, of course (either in accordance or in conflict with the will of the gods). Oedipus in Oedipus the King is determined to pursue the truth in spite of the objections of Jocasta, the priest, and his own misgivings. In Oedipus at Colonus, Theseus "cannot rest" (line 1773) until he has served both Antigone and the late Oedipus (implying that conscience is his motivator awareness, in other words, of his duty towards them). In Antigone, Antigone acts in accordance to the will of the gods (but in disobedience to the will of Creon) and does so knowing the punishment that awaits her: "Go I, his prisoner, because I honored those things to which honor truly belongs" (lines 178-9). This paper will show how while fate is a powerful force in The Theban Plays, the characters themselves are still left to exercise their own free will (either with respect or disrespect to will of the gods). Thus, the main drama consists not in the

Think about how it would feel knowing that you and your sister are the only ones alive of your family. Knowing that both of your brothers have recently died, slaughtered by one another and that one of your brother’s body was not allowed to be buried because of the king’s law. This is how the character of Antigone feels in the Greek Tragedy Antigone by Sophocles.

Oedipus Rex and Antigone written by Sophocles were two difficult but enjoyable plays. I think the pacing of the class reading these two plays were a little off. It seemed to me that we either took to long on a part of the play or we rushed through a part. I personally think that the class should read these two plays first because, there a bit longer than the short stories that we read. Reading these first would be beneficial because everyone just came back from spring break and would be refreshed. Which would make going through the reading easier.

Oedipus the King is a Greek tragedy play written by Sophocles, and it made its first debut