Antigone’s courage stimulated by Creons’ unjust tyranny resonates as a symbol of heroism and justice throughout history and across cultures. As Hegel states “Of all the masterpieces of the classical world … Antigone seems to make the most magnificent and satisfying work of art of its kind…the celestial Antigone, the most resplendent figure ever to have appeared on earth.” (Aesthetics) Antigone’s moral voice of dissent against Creon’s iron rule is an action of historical human significance and spiritual strength as she acts heroically against political power with no calculation of the consequences to herself. As Steiner 1979 states she possesses political instinct, will and resolution and “is the embodiment of moral principle.”(pp 6,7) Antigone belongs to the supreme hour in the fifth century B.C. when Sophocles produced and composed Antigone while the Parthenon was being built.
As Jebb (2004) states the figure of Antigone provides “The most profoundly tender, embodiment of women's heroism which ancient literature can show.”(p vi) Weinreb (1987) holds Antigone the “first great heroine of civil resistance, almost the leader or inspirator of a resistance movement against tyranny.”(p 21) Bagg (2004) holds that modern day rebels “oppressed or those facing riot troops claim kinship with Sophocles’ Antigone [who] acting on her beliefs, she takes on the tyrant Creon by dying for those beliefs, she leaves him the ruined man and her cause triumphant.”(p 161).
The great testimony of Antigone is her ability to recognize the concept of divine justice with its universal morality of laws and to distinction between divine and human justice. Antigone's fight against oppression and a corrupt regime makes her a symbol of moral emancipation as she embodies the voice of conscience and morality to inspire one of the most powerful and significant myths of the human race. Her justice possesses moral connotations and is the justice upon which the universe works. Antigone adheres to the divine laws of the gods and rebels against the decrees of Creon even with his “death sentence ringing in my ears.”(515). The appeal of Antigone is her philosophic courage to appeal to natural and unwritten laws in order to control the naked power of Creon, demonstrating that the power of any man can never be absolute but is subject to the requirements of the higher moral laws which control the universe.
The idea of natural law appears for the first time in Aristotle whose who did not differentiate between justice and law. However, while Aristotle assigned a positive function to the State, seeing it as a promoter of good, he failed to see that it was also an advocate of repression. Respect for law and custom of human authority subordinates the individual to the State and its’ claims on civic life, while the moral inviolability of divine law, the laws of the Gods and of natural origins, are generated from the belief of divine retributive justice and embody the powers and forces governing everything in the universe including human beings and their earthly conduct. The retributional notion that the gods punished the wicked was deeply rooted in Greek belief. For Sophocles’ Greek tragedies the gods administer justice through fate and according to their universal and unwritten laws and it is “full of delayed and reciprocal actions.” (Garner1987, p 8). Zeus and his son, Apollo, can see all things and communicate their knowledge to human kind through omens, oracles and dreams but their outcome is not always predictable. Sophocles makes his position clear at the end of Antigone. “Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness; and reverence towards the gods must be inviolate. Great words of prideful men are ever punished with great blows, and, in old-age, teach the chastened to be wise.”(1349-1352 J) Aeschylean holds that the doer shall suffer and the sufferer shall learn (Webster 1936 p 28).The gods lead astray to Ate (ruin) and punish irreverence and pride as they do to Creon who defies the divine ordinance of burial.
The quest for a just society is an aspiration to which all civilizations aspire and can be traced back to the classical Greek times of Antigone’s “unwritten law,” where the concept of justice was one of the profoundest of their beliefs. As Douzinas (1994) states Greek tragedy has for centuries been the “meeting point of philosophy, literature and ethics, of reason, form and law.”(p 26).The foundations of Hellenic culture are unique, their gods are powerful and living and embody the ideals of human morality, conditions and activities.
Sophocles wrote Antigone in 442-441 B.C. and are one part of a cycle of legends and a continuous narrative saga which concerns the royal doomed house of Laius in Thebes .Oedipus and his family are caught in the grip of Fate and its’ evil and tragic mechanisms so that his crimes impose upon his bloodline. Steiner (1979) judged Antigone to be not only “the greatest of Greek plays [but also] the most accomplished of all aesthetic works of the human spirit.”(p 3). Though the Antigone of Sophocles is a mythical person her emotions and courage are real and human and her message is powerful and symbolic and commands our imagination and humanity.
Antigone is the story of a clash between polis and family, focused on the problem of burial rites which are administered by the ancient archaic unalterable laws of the gods and belong to the ethical duties of family and kinship. Antigone is forbidden by Creons’ state decree to give her brother a ritual burial thus corrupting the city and desecrating divine law which would have struck a deep chord within the Athenian audience. Creon is uncompromising in his principle of duty to the polis and has a ruthless hatred for rebels.Antigone is single-minded in her devotion and believes that the burial of her brother is a natural right and duty and transcends all the duties to her state and to herself. Creon is Antigone’s uncle, her kin and he tarnishes his lineage by ordering her death and refusing burial to Polynesians, his nephew. The extreme punishment for breaking the prohibition on lamentation and burial, both within the city and outside its’ boundaries, reveals the merciless tyranny of Creon who has no empathy or pity for Antigone's privitations endured for her unshakable devotion to her blind destitute father , Oedipus, who in his torment destroys his own eyesight, leaving the city as a beggar. Alone in his anguish, he has only his youngest daughter, Antigone, to protect him throughout his many years of despair and privitations as he grew old. This is the background within which the actions of Antigone and Creon are set. Antigone’s strength of will initiates from philia, piety and love. She demonstrates great tenderness towards her loved ones and puts herself to the service of her family with great faithfulness which she will not compromise. The audience cannot fail to admire her courage and resilience of spirit and the autonomy which springs from her religious sense of wisdom and ability to perceive the warning to civilization which Sophocles presents. Oedipus’ sons Polyneices and Eteocles showed little regard for their father in his anguish, rather they are gripped by the passion of “an evil rivalry… to grasp at rule and kingly power.”(O.C.371, 372) Oedipus is cognizant of Antigone's long endurance of sacrifice sharing his life as a blind exile beggar and aware of his family's neglect. Oedipus declares Polynesians to be “vilest of the vile” (O.C. 1383) and reminds him “had these daughters not been born to be my comfort, verily, I had been dead, for ought of help from thee.” (1365, 1366) Oedipus delivers a dreadful curse upon the brothers, dooming his sons to die by each other's hands. “Never canst thou overthrow that city; no, first shalt fall stained with bloodshed and thy brother likewise.”(1372, 1373). He states “Justice revealed from of old, sits with Zeus in the might of the eternal laws.”(1378-1380). Antigone beseeches Polyneices “Destroy not thyself and Thebes,” (1415) recognizing foundations both of family and the state, taking account of principles pertaining to both kinship and the polis. Polyneices is not be dissuaded but asks “As ye fear that Gods, do not, for your part dishonour me, nay give me burial, and use funeral rites (1409, 1410)
When the tyrant Creon condemns her to death his inevitable destruction begins from that moment.
Outraged by Creon's challenge, the Gods haunt him with strife and carnage. Not until the point of deadly crisis with his family in ruins, his son and wife driven to death by him is Creon force to acknowledge his guilt “Because of my guilt.”(1403). He denies and contaminates the natural order and harmony of the gods towards the dead by refusing Polynesians burial. As the chorus say to Creon “To late, too late to see what justice means.”(1400) His woeful grasp of the operation of the justice of the gods’ then dawns upon him and as he replies, “Upon my head/God has delivered this heavy punishment/Has struck me down in the way of wickedness.” (1401-1403). He at last comprehends, “political power must be subjected to the demands of reason and law.” (Douzinas 2002 p 446).Creon is an embattled commander and as Whitman (1951) states “Antigone is the balance in which Creon is weighed and found wanting.”
Throughout the play Sophocles presents two conflicting forces and reveals the conflict between Creon and Antigone as “a double centre of gravity,” (Goheen 1951 p 97), the polarized opposition of principles, values and moralities which are irreconcilable hence it is a tragedy and fatal conflict. Whitman (1951) states “Antigone is the balance in which Creon is weighed and found wanting.” Hegel calls the struggle the “rupture of divine and human law.”(p 493).In his philosophic interpretations Hegel takes Creons’ position seriously and sees him as possessing moral justification as a statesman attempting to restore order upon which civilisation relies. For Creon civic order and reason are paramount and he holds that his proclamation will strengthen the state, especially at this time when Thebes is subject to invasion and dangerous extremities. Creon believes that his duty belongs to the state and that Polyneices is a traitor who was intent on the destruction of the temples of the city and therefore subject to punishment and his body left unburied to be devoured by carrion birds and dogs.Antigone cannot transgress the laws of the gods, her duty to bury her brother is bound to divine ordinance administered by the gods transcending any duty to the state.
Hegel concedes that Creon does not embody the total ethical position and as a tragic character is both guilty and innocent,both blameworthy and legitimate.Creon is punished by the suicide of both son and wife and Creon recognizes himself “a rash foolish man” responsible for the deaths ( 1339 J) “this guilt can never be fixed on any other..I even I was thy slayer, wretched that I am-I own the truth.”( 1317,1318 J.)
Antigone is driven by emotion, faith, an ethical conscience and commitment to the unwritten laws of the gods. Antigone insists on the moral foundation of the divine laws and is thus able to resist civil authority, her plea being to “the Justice, dwelling with the gods beneath the earth.”(451 F.) Antigone is the champion of a humane and ethical vision of justice while Creon uses his political ambitions and authority to manipulate and inverts the natural order of the divine and cosmic world.
Creon creates the locus of tyranny and justice is only recoverable by Antigone's defiance of his corrupt regime which Creon permeates on Thebes. Sophocles exploits the difference between divine, underwritten law and human law so that the challenge of the play is waged not merely between Antigone and Creon, but also the Gods of Olympia and Creon.
The obligation of the divine law is upheld by women and state law by citizens. These laws are absolute yet complementary and tragedy occurs when they come into conflict for there is no reconciliation. In Antigone there is irresolvable opposition and irreconcilable rights of family and state.
The Greek audience saw a society governed by the unwritten law of the nether gods and the sacred laws of the family which binds the living and dead and where the woman are responsible for the funeral rites and the spiritualising of death in order to safeguard the family. The Greek audiences would realize that within the domestic house a woman’s duty is to prepare a philos body and perform the religious rituals of burial. Antigone is the guardian of traditions acting from her female identity assigned to the domestic province of philia. Religious, cultural and political backgrounds encourage pride and respect for lineage and kindred. The State law are assigned to men and Creon by his proclamation seeks to discard these traditional ways and invite civil corruption. Antigone’s adherence to the immortal, unwritten divine laws and their traditional foundations, attempting to bring Thebes back to the power of justice creates a conflict and Creon suffers according to the triumph of divine over human law.
Antigone's ideals of justice enabling her Homeric struggle and defiance against the king are particularly heroic in the context of Aristotle’s development of politics and power where women are confined to the non-political realm of the private sphere and not permitted the dual status of public and private in a political world which is the arena of masculine authority. The marginality of her cultural position is as a woman of political subordination challenging the dominant centre of a male power culture where she operates in the male-dominated paradigm of political power, which is also the paradigm of the state law and the polis, Antigone’s courage is exemplified in a context which recognizes only male actors. (Foley 2003).
Antigone and Oedupus
Antigone rebels against the power of the King and will challenge his authority and even though he is set to kill her for she values her moral integrity and duty to her brother more than she fears death. As Hegel (1971) states “The loss of a brother is irreparable to the sister, and her duty towards him is the highest.”(p 477). She is the “preserver of the divine law” and hence is “ethically significant.”(p 478). “I know my duty, where true duty lies.”(132).Her rebellion is one of moral enlightenment against an oppressive system. As Steiner (1979) states “Antigone is the embodiment of a moral principle.” (p 5). She exemplifies the relationship “between the individual and the state [and] of a possible fatality of collision between a private person and political power [as seen in] the events of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic period.”(p 3).
Sophocles presents Ismene as a foil for her sister’s heroism. The two sisters of Polyneices, last remaining children of Oedipus enter the play in the prologue .When Antigone hears of Creon’s proclamation she seeks out Ismene who has the same familial obligation to their unburied brother and tells her that she is resolved to bury Polyneices in defiance of Creon’s edict. Antigone not only needs Ismene’s help in lifting the body, “Wilt thou aid this hand to lift the dead?”(43 J.), but also with the lamentations. Antigone takes it as implicit that Ismene will feel the same responsibility to their brother as she urges her, “Thou wilt soon show whether thou art notably bred, or the base daughter of a noble line.”(37, 38 J.) To fail to perform the act of burial would be an act of betrayal, “False to him will I never be found.” (46 J) But Ismene is more fragile and law-abiding than her sister,
Ismene “You cannot mean to bury him? Against the order?”
Antigone “Yes he is my brother, (44-45)
I will bury him myself (71F)
Ismene “Then go if you must… wild, irrational as you are” (97, 98 F)
Ismene knows that Antigone will use the autonomous power of her free will. In an arena of oppression Antigone was prepared, compelled by her “must” to create a spatial opposition to power and the despotism of Creon’s abuse of divine justice. “But I will bury him, and if I must die” (66, 67) As Douzinas (1994) states Antigone demonstrates “no equivocation, no ambiguously, no hesitation” but she “states her own ‘must’” (p 26) Antigone is prepared to sacrifice her life to protect the honour of her brother in death according to the moral precepts of the gods of the underworld, who require all the dead to be buried within the earth in order they be permitted within their kingdom, for any one left unburied may not receive the protection of the gods in death. Antigone is determined to uphold the divine compassionate law enabling her brother access to the kingdom of the gods of the underworld
Ismene pleads holds that, they cannot act beyond their limitations, “Remember we were born women who should not strive with men, we are ruled of the stronger, so we must obey ruled by stronger hands, so we must submit in this.” (60, 61.J.) The audience would see Ismene more the model for Athenian womanhood than Antigone, “a model for compliance and submission expected of women.” (Tyrrell 1998 p 77)Unlike Antigone, Ismene is prepared to submit to the evil tyranny of Creon and while Ismene urges secrecy Antigone determines to proclaim her actions. (86) Though Ismene does not assist Antigone with the burial,after the rites had been achieved she recognized the superiority of divine law when she is later prepared to share the guilt. Antigone will not compromise with her own actions but though she feels Ismene has failed her philia duty her final words to her are of great tenderness “Be of good cheer, thou livest,but my life hath long been given to death, that so I might serve the dead.”(559,560 J).As Jebb (2004) states these words are not said with bitterness but mean “Take heart to live.”(p107)
When Creon learns of the sprinkling of dust on Polyneices’ body he demands of the watchman, “What living man hath dared this deed?”(248 J) “He does not think of women.” (Jebb 2004 p 56). Creon states he must “in no way suffer a woman to worse us. Better to fall from power, if we must, by a man’s hand, then we should not be called weaker than a woman.”(677,679J). As Tyrrell (1998) states “A victorious Antigone will take everything from him including his masculinity.”(p.73). Because of the male bias of his culture Creon is unable to tolerate Antigone's actions though they are within the familial spheres and the responsibilities of kinship burial to which she is culturally assigned and under the divine laws to which she is compelled. Ismene cannot conceive of acting outside the principles of civic order and convention. She states “What will be the end of us/If we transgress the law and defy our king?/ O think, Antigone; we all women its is not for us / To fight against men; our rulers are stronger than we/And we must obey in this.”(72-76) Ismene sees Antigone's action to observe her brothers burial rites as impossible against royal authority, “a hopeless quest.”(108) Antigone is heroically acting against corrupt rule, despite her gender placing her at the political margin of the city state.
When Creon finds that earth has been sprinkled on the corpse he lashes out in fury and the suggestion by the chorus that it might have been “the work of the gods” (279 J) he dismisses this in wrath, “Thou sayest what cannot be borne, in saying that the gods have care for this corpse.”(282,283 J).Creon is changing into a tyrant and as Creon, himself, states “No man is fully known, in soul and spirit and mind, until he hath been seen versed in rule and law-giving.”(174,175 J).His fate illustrates this moral.Creon claims to know more than the gods and as any tyrant he will brook no challenge to his authority and is quick to anger. The conflict between Antigone and Creon is never clearer as in the conflict between human law and divine law.
Creon identifies his proclamations as “law,” while Antigone identifies them as edicts which she holds have no validity because they claim to override divine laws.
Creon “You dared defy the law?”
Antigone “I dared.
That order did not come from God. Justice
That dwells with the god, below, knows no such law.
I did not think your edicts strong enough
To overruled the unwritten unalterable laws
Of God and heaven, you being only a man.
They are not of yesterday or today but ever lasting
The immortal unrecorded laws of God
They are not merely now, they were and ever shall be.” (449-458 W)
In proclaiming his decree Creon challenges the sacred laws of the Olympician God despite the fact that at the beginning of the play he acknowledges the authority of the gods who “have brought our city/safe through a storm of trouble to tranquillity.”(144, 146) Antigone challenges Creon’s concept of justice, insisting that divine justice dike takes precedence over the civic state rule and that Creon is using arbitrary force in preventing her giving Polyneices a proper burial.Creon insists “He whom the State appoints must be obeyed/to the smallest matter, be it right or wrong (665). Creon sees Antigones disobediences to his commands as a threat to the stability of the polis, he is determined to preserve law and order. It was recognized in Greek society that rules relating to behaviour are important for the good order of the community and that contravention of such rules could damage the state.Antigone seems determined to break the law which would be anaesthetists to Athenian audiences, who like Socrates were law abiding people, hence at the beginning of the play Creon would appear to have apparent right on his side. The Chorus at first accept Creon’s contention of power, “Thou hast power I ween, to take what order thou wilt caused both for the dead, and for all us who live,”(213, 214 J) though their words express some uneasiness. Initially the issue of burial for a state traitor is not clear cut and the audience receives some persuasion that Creon is right and acting in good conscience for the integrity of the state but gradually Sophocles reveals Creon’s tyranny, a man in power who enforces his authoritarian will and misdirects his statecraft prepared to sacrifice the life of a pious woman ruled by her conscience and devotion to her family whose intentions are philia. The Greek audience would also recognize as tyranny the rule of a king who puts his welfare above that of his subjects, following his proud whims and claiming ownership of the city “Is not the city held to be the ruler’s?”(737 J)
Creon maintains that he can override divine law for political expedience and reasons of state and that the gods will permit this violation of their sphere. But Creon is wrong, the gods allow no exceptions to their laws. As Bowra (1944) states, “Creon errs because he assumes that reasons of state justify him denying their dues to the gods. He neglects the distinction between what is due to them and what is due to man, between what is holy and what is merely just.” (pp70, 71)
Creon holds that the state is more important than the individual and states “if any makes a friend of more account than his fatherland, that man hath no place in my regard.”(181,182. J).This has chilling echoes in twentieth century totalitarian states. Only the stability of the state matters as Creon abandons philia love and family feeling as he separates law from love. Divine retributive justice eventually teaches Creon and he is destined by his error to live on and endure a destiny without love.Creon fails to comprehend that he has breached not the traditional “established laws” (1112 J) but the divine impetus of justice and love behind these laws which makes them sacred. Only the stability of the state matters as Creon abandons philia love and family feeling as he separates law from love.
Freud (1930) in Civilization and Its Discontent holds that “The cry of freedom is directed either against particular forms or demands of culture or else against culture itself.” Man cannot change his nature and will always “defend his claim to individual freedom against the will of the multitude.”(pp 60, 61). Until now Antigone was a compliant member of civilization. However, as Freud (1930) points out, “Women represent the interests of the family and sexual life, the work of civilization has become more and more men's business.”(p 73) As Antigone sees the burying of her brother as an obligation in this sphere, such tyrannical repression in this sphere causes an outpouring of discontent and forms the foundation of her rebellion against Creon who can only maintain his court by the repression of the individual and the rule of taboo. This suppression can lead to “a state of things which the individual will not be able to bear” and thus erupt to the “frenzied revolutionary.” (Freud 1930 p143)
While Antigone stands alone Creon continually requires the support of others be it the chorus or his son. He needs to dominate imposing his “yoke” and subjugating all possible opposition. Creon while claiming the importance of law in the civilizing process, disregards and steps outside the boundaries of civilized humanity by his inhuman action refusing Polyneices the rites of burial and leaving his nephew’s body to lie in the field, “Unwept, unspulchred” despite the profound religious significance of burial, and leaving Antigone “alone, forlorn” (885 J ) in “some wild, desolate path never trod by men and wall her up alive in a rocky vault.”(870, 871 F). Haemon, Antigone betrothed, endeavours to plead the cause with Creon his father. At first he tries to alert his father to the condemnation from the ordinary common morality and conscience of public opinion , “these murmuring in the dark,” over Antigone’s condemnation , “none ever was to die so shamefully for deeds so glorious as hers.”(692,693 J) Indeed Antigone should be rewarded, “Deserves not she the need of golden honour?” Haemon speaks to his father with respectful deference and concern “It is my natural office to watch, on my behalf, all that men say, or do, or find blame.”(698,699 J). But his father enters on a diatribe denouncing Antigone and lecturing his son on filial obligation and demanding obedience and loyalty in patriarchical clichés .Haemon argues that Creon is “offending against justice (744 J) and would make a “good monarch of the desert” (737 J). He warned his father “Not from this hour shall you see me again, let those that will be witness of your wickedness and folly.” (764 W) Creon does not recognize the warning, but responds by becoming enraged and demands Antigone b, e taken to a desert place and entombed in a cave.
Teiresias, the old blind soothsayer, gives a warning but Creon denounces him “You lust for injustice” (159 F). Though Creon demands civic obedience he rejects the law of the gods and hence brings his own downfall. Teiresias warns “The fury sent by the gods... to strike you down with the pains that you perfected” (1079, 1080 F), but Creon denounces him, “You lust for injustice”(159 F).
Creon rejects him but his mind is troubled. He seeks advice from the chorus asking them what he should do He comes to his senses and calls for spades and slaves to go with him to set Antigone free from the cave saying “Now I believe it is by the laws of Heaven that man must live.” But it is too late. A messenger arrives to say how Haemon had entered the cave and found Antigone has hanged herself. When Creon enters the cave Haemon spits in his father's face and draws his sword and plunges it is in own side killing himself as he embraces Antigone.He dies cursing the actions of his father. Creon returned to the palace bewailing events and cursing his own morality which has led to these events. A messenger enters from the palace saying his wife died by her own hand driving a sword into her heart on hearing of the death of her son and in her dying breath curses Creon.
Creon is left alone on the stage crushed by the belief in his own authority, but seeing in the end that there is a law above man's law, a metaphysical law of natural good, Antigone was ruled by her conscience and the belief in the higher law of spirituality, compassion that the dead should be blessed and honoured with burial as decreed by the gods of the underworld. From these conflicting forces Sophocles created the tragedy. The houses of both Oedipus and Creon are destroyed.
Antigone reaches to us from classical times to show the importance of acting subject to conscience and compassion and a higher law than the law of the state for in modernity individuals subjects make their own judgments. Creon asks to be led to away seeing what can happen when man even a king ignores the higher law, the law of the gods. He denied Antigone the right to accord with the justice of the gods to bury her brother resulting in his wife and son preferring death by their own hands to a life with a tyrant such as him .The chorus warns the Athenian spectators of a timeless and eternal truth which speaks to us in even today that it is wisdom and reverence to the gods which gives happiness, as Creon learns tyranny and injustice brings “a crushing fate… upon my head.”(1345 J)
Antigone is the finest of Greek tragedies and a great symbol of moral emancipation. But the true resonance behind the courage and heroism can be found in Antigone’s words, “I was born to join in love, not hate.”(523,524 F). Antigone is a symbol of justice, but it is a justice with love.
