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Summary Of ' The ' Brien ' S. Brien 's ' Antigone ' Essay

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Of course, many would object that giving away humanity 's collective soul for the sake of peace in an unacceptable trade, and Paulin vehemently counters O 'Brien 's arguments. He adopts, as his own, Hegel 's view of Antigone, a view in which "neither the right of family, nor that of the state is denied; what is denied is the absoluteness of the claim of each," and Paulin continues his attack by applying O 'Brien 's logic to Irish grounds, noting that "Here Antigone (i.e. Bernadette Devlin and the Civil Rights movement) becomes responsible for 'all those funerals '. This means that the Unionist State is virtually absolved of all responsibility and Creon 's hands appear to be clean"(27-28). Paulin 's decision to apply O 'Brien 's logic to his own specifically Northern Irish grounds made for perhaps his most devastating attack against O 'Brien 's claims. More than that, however, this attack suggests that Paulin was already reading Antigone with his own homeland in mind and had already begun weighing the implications of both Antigone 's actions and Creon 's for his own situation in Derry. Indeed, Paulin 's translation of Antigone suggests that, for him, the play has great relevance for Northern Ireland with little emendation. The Riot Act diverges little from Sophocles 's plot, exhibiting significant variation only in language – Paulin inserts Irish English phrasings throughout the play and changes some speeches uttered by the Chorus. The story and arrangement, however,

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