Plato's Socrates and Sophocle's Antigone - Similarities
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The ancient Greek societies had a strong corrective method to maintain order. Authorities had to maintain a self-survival attitude, which consisted of putting away those few that could challenge their power and create chaos. Both Antigone of Sophocles and Socrates of Plato are examples of threat to the socio-political order or their respective societies.
Antigone is a woman in the context of fifth-century Athens, Greece who challenges the socio-political orders of the city in name of a blood relationship, which through her eyes is sacred in the name of the gods. The divine law says that all man should be buried following the proper rites. In the ancient Greek household, women are the ones who must do the proper funeral rites and bury the…show more content… Antigone realizes she can hear the voice of death; she suffers in wonders “What law of the mighty gods have I transgressed?” (106); she now feels she is left alone and claims “I alone, see what I suffer now / at the hands of what breed of men – / all for reverence, my reverence for the gods!” (107) ; she commits suicide and Creon finds her dead body.
The prophet Teresias was right, his son Heamon took his own life because he saw his bride dead, and Heamon’s mother, the queen, killed herself as well after knowing the death of her son. Creon finally says he has learned “through blood and tears” (124) through his senseless and insane crimes. He takes the blame for having murdered his son and his wife, against his will. Those lives were the price of his pride.
Antigone, of Sophocles, paid the price of her own life for having transgressed the rules of her society; she was considered a threat to the power of Creon and to the order of the Thebes. A similar situation happens in Socrates of Plato, where he is seen as a threat to the social order. Socrates was accused by the people from his city, he defended himself on his trial, but his defense wasn’t convincing enough for the men of Athens, so he was condemned guilty and put to death.
Socrates was a wise man that over the time ended up with a bad reputation in the eyes of the society. He claims that “what caused [his] reputation is none other than a certain