Antigone
Antigone is the daughter of Oedipus the late King of Thebes. She is one of four children born to the late King out of an incestuous but unwitting marriage with his own mother. His tragic tale is told elsewhere. Eteocles and Polyneices, Antigone’s two brothers, have gone to war over which of them should have sole rule over Thebes. Both brothers die in the battle at each other’s hand. Antigone brings her sister Ismene to a secluded place and together mourn their loss and their own tragic lives. Antigone informs her sister that their uncle Creon, who now rules Thebes, has declared that Eteocles is to be buried with full ceremony and honors. But Polyneices, who first brought civil war to the kingdom, was to be left to rot on the battlefield. He was to have no ceremony, no burial, and no prayers. His body was to be left on the battlefield to be eaten by wild animals.
Creon has declared this fate publicly. Anyone violating this ruling will be put to death. But Antigone tells her sister that she can not in good conscience abide by this ruling. So she determines to find her brother’s body and pray over him and bury him according to the mandates of the Gods.
Antigone asks her sister’s help in this undertaking. But Ismene, although hurt and grieved by the ruling, will not help her. She will not go against the ruling of the King. Ismene, although sympathetic to her sister’s cause, doesn’t have the strength, as a mere woman, to defy the King. To her women are "not framed by nature to contend with men." So one sister reluctantly obeys the law of the land, the other answers to a higher law and goes in search of her brother’s body. Antigone knows full well that defiance of the ruling will mean her death, but a life of guilt and shame for abandoning her beliefs and her duty is not, for her, an option.
Creon has posted guards near the body of Polyneices to insure that his ruling is obeyed. These men discover Antigone while she is performing the ceremonial burial of her brother. They bring her before Creon. She defends her actions by declaring that she is obeying eternal laws of right and wrong that override the laws of man. Creon declares that she is to be entombed alive in a rock-hewn chamber.
Creon’s son and heir, Haemon, is betrothed to Antigone and is her beloved. He, while declaring his respect and love and obedience to his father, pleads for his father to change his mind and take back his rulings in this matter. Haemon’s pleas for his beloved’s life fall on deaf ears and he departs from his father with the threat that he will die alongside his true love. Creon is determined to see his decisions through to their end. He is the King of Thebes and will not let others dictate to him. He is unconcerned that his own judgement is being questioned by the people of Thebes. "What", he asks his son, "Is the mob to dictate my policy?" It is his fate to rule and, right or wrong, he will do just that.
Teiresias, the seer of the court of Thebes, comes to Creon with advice. Teiresias is old and has played an important part in the ongoing story of the troubled royal family of Thebes. He is the one who warns them of the fates that lie in wait for them. He is the family oracle or prophet whose advice they should pay close attention to.
Teiresias reminds Creon that, with his help, Creon has "steered the Ship of State aright". But that now Teresias believes that Creon "treadest once again the razor edge of peril". He tells Creon that these decisions that he has made are against the laws of the Gods and that he Creon will pay a heavy price for usurping power that he has no right to. Creon repents and, with his guards, sets out to free Antigone from her living tomb.
But Haemon has beaten him to the place of Antigone’s entombment and has found that she has hung herself within. He is heartbroken and enraged. Creon and his guards arrive and find the tomb unsealed. When Creon enters he finds his son beside the dead Antigone and tries to console him. But Haemon will not hear Creons words and, like a wild man, spits on his father and tries to cut him with his sword. Haemon misses his father and in his grief he impales himself and dies alongside Antigone.
Eurydice, Creon’s wife, having heard the news of her son’s death also kills herself and dies cursing Creon as the one responsible for the tragedies.
Creon, returning to the palace, learns of his dear wife’s suicide and laments. He realises that he alone is responsible, through his own judgements and will, for the deaths of his loved ones.
The final chorus sums up the moral of the play:
"Of happiness the chiefest part
Is a wise heart:
And to defraud the gods in aught
With peril's fraught.
Swelling words of high-flown might
Mightily the gods do smite.
Chastisement for errors past
Wisdom brings to age at last."
There are many different themes in Antigone from which to choose a central, or most important, one. There are the themes of Religion vs The State, Family Loyalty vs. The State, Politics and the use of Power, Gender, Love, Fate, and Individual Conscience. There are also Pride, Anger, Fear, Betrayal and the contradictory nature of "The Mob". All these human ideas and qualities interact and, in turn, reveal themselves to us. Most importantly they reveal our very nature and condition, to us. Essential to our humanity is the concept of the individual and the gifts and burdens that go hand in hand with such a blessing.
A very interesting aspect of the play, to me, is the way the Gods intervene in specific lives and, with careless abandon, leave the rest of humanity to ride out the storms that their interventions have encouraged. Plagues, war, and countless other difficulties are heaped upon the innocent, almost always including the main characters in tragic ironies and contradictions, with little or no explanation from the Gods.
Anigone, while not the specific target of the ill-humored Gods, is drawn into the tragedy as an innocent. She herself was not mentioned in the portents that the Gods bestowed upon the sighted ones. Her warnings come from those who love her, those she loves, and those that would do her harm while attending to their own particular interests. The only interventions made on her behalf come from those who love her, and those who would warn the King that he himself was in danger of angering the Gods by his aggressive pursuit of his dictates. But she herself has no direct information from the Gods in any way. She only has her own conscience to follow, which she does with great resignation, hope, and courage.
She stands alone against the ultimate earthly power with only her conscience and her heart to guide her. She defies the power of the King, the State, and even the loving pleas of her sister and determines to bury her brother. She does this because the Gods have declared, from time eternal, that people should be prepared, with love and dignity, through specific ritual, for their passage into the next life in order to find peace there. For anyone to neglect this familial duty, in defiance of the Gods, is unthinkable to her. And "The Mob" knows this too. The State had overstepped its natural boundary and interfered with a higher law.
But Antigone is brave and determined. She could never be satisfied with just knowing the right and wrong of a thing. Her only course of action is action itself. Not for her to be silent and suffer through her life with the knowledge of the crushing wrong that has been done to her loved one. Nor could she live with herself in the eyes of the eternal, the Gods and the Dead, knowing that she had failed in her duty. So while "The Mob", knowing in their hearts that she is acting for something much higher and more important than mere politics or pride, stands dumb and passive, she herself takes action.
She does not do this covertly. She makes a public display of her action. There is no other way. Her brother’s body is guarded so that no person may perform the necessary rituals to which all the dead are entitled. She knows her fate and meets it, knowing that she has lived a proper life. She is the ultimate truth of the human condition. The Gods are The Gods, The State is The State, but the only true measure of an individual’s life is conscience.
This woman suffered much. Her tragic family life, from the moment of her conception, destined her to exile and heartache. She carried stigmas, endured hardships, and made the ultimate sacrifice in order to live a proper life. And she did it with and for love.
Some who look at this play see it as being about Civil Disobedience. Well it is. But it is much more that that. Some might see it as being about the unbending, aggressive, impulsive, and ultimately regrettable pursuit and use of power. Well it is. But it is much more than that also. I believe this story’s most important theme is the challenge that befalls every individual to struggle with life’s iniquities and conundrums and to somehow determine the right course of action and, no matter the consequence, proceed accordingly.
Henry David Thoreau once said that, "Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one". This is the position in which Antigone finds herself. The State is against her because she will not put aside her beliefs, forgo her familial obligations, give in to her fears, or admit that The State and it’s laws supersede her own individual conscience. She is no rebel and no terrorist. She seeks no power or position. Hers is a life of long suffering devotion to those she loves, and her strength is to not abandon her beliefs.
There are many examples throughout time where the values and ideas expressed in this play have found expression in historical reality. The early Christian martyrs, five centuries later, who walked into the coliseum and certain death, could have no trouble identifying with Antigone. To value a belief or an idea more than life itself is essential to the very nature of humanity. To suffer insult and indignity for one’s beliefs or ideas, or indeed for ones sex, color, age, or demeanor is certainly not restricted to any particular time and place.
Governments, like Creon, often act rashly and aggressively. This is to be expected. The State must be seen to act decisively and in full measure. But States are rarely plagued by conscience. That is the arena of the individual.
There were many people in America who disagreed with the war in Vietnam. Some, guided by conscience, defied the States efforts to send them there to fight for what they saw as an unjust war. Some, guided by religious beliefs, refused the governments efforts to involve them in any war. The concept of the "Conscientious Objector" is a tribute to our democracy. The States power over the individual, especially in matters of religion and conscience, are limited. Even those who could not prove their case were given the same choice, though not as dire, as Antigone. They could opt for prison terms in lieu of military service.
There is no guarantee, when you allow your conscience to guide you in life, that the road will be a pleasant one. Often conscience will pit you against your friends and neighbors. Like the civil rights activists during the turbulent post-war period, whole communities may rise against you. Like the women who marched for equality and sufferance in the late 19th and early 20th centuries you may find yourself the object of ridicule and scorn. But to live without regard to conscience is not to be human at all.
Each individual’s conscience is their own domain. I would not like to infer that every person who follows their conscience would always take the same side or the same actions. This is certainly not the case at all. Sometimes wars are justly fought. The defence of one’s self, family, friends, and community is rarely impeded by a troublesome conscience. But there are times when family, friends, and community make demands that conscience will not abide. Not every person goes with the mob. Some, like Antigone, stand apart and hold to their own agenda.
Like Creon, modern governments can sometimes over-react to perceived challenges to their power and authority. They can make and un-make laws that irrationally contravene long held ideals. To oppose the government on these issues may, by some, be seen as seditious. Creon himself states that:
"… he who overbears the laws, or thinks
To overrule his rulers, such as one
I never will allow. Whome'er the State
Appoints must be obeyed in everything,
But small and great, just and unjust alike."
One area that I would like to mention as an example of the relevance of the play in modern times is this: Creon, to establish his power as newly appointed King, makes an edict that defies the beliefs that are at the very heart of the kingdom that he has inherited. The people know that he has done something horribly wrong. But he is the King and they are pledged to obey the law.
Due to the catastrophic events of 9/11, and the subsequent wars that we are presently engaged in, some of our most fundamental beliefs are being challenged, not solely by our enemies, but also by our own State. Liberties and Freedoms that generations have fought, and died, to establish and maintain are under attack. For our leaders to condone, excuse, or even to passively neglect the abuses that have occurred to people who we have taken prisoner is to undermine the efforts and sacrifices that have been made by every generation of citizens. If we go to war to protect our ideals, then those ideals must be our strongest weapon.
When the State goes to war in order to defend the ideals that define it, and to share those ideals with others that might benefit from them, there is no excuse for abandoning them abroad or undermining them at home. There may be some safety in turning a blind eye while the State chisels away at deeply held beliefs and ideals, or discards them completely, but safety itself is no real excuse. Antigone is one who would rather die a noble death than live dishonorably by abandoning those beliefs that she holds more precious than life itself.
Humanity has progressed in many ways since the time of Sophocles, but we are still human after all. We have forged democracies and have made human rights a cornerstone of the modern world. We have hammered treaties concerning the treatment of prisoners, domestic and foreign, and have faced many perils in upholding and enforcing those treaties. For any State to consciously attempt to undermine or circumvent those achievements is shameful.
We have always attempted to be the shining light of Freedom and Liberty to the world. This is a noble effort and I am sure that most of the worlds’ people will ultimately benefit from our struggle. But our actions must reflect our ideals. Our treatment of those we hold in prisons, who should be receiving counsel, care, contact with loved ones and fair and open justice, should demonstrate openly to the world the goodness of our intentions and the strengths our ideals.
Creon did not very much like the idea of appearing weak to the world around him, so he over reacted to a perceived threat and, eventually, paid a dear price for his rashness. Rather than demonstrating strength he demonstrated his own personal weakness of character. Rather than showing his compassion and understanding he opted to use his power in a cruel and thoughtless manner.
This play gives us much to think about and it is as relevant today as it was in antiquity. There are many themes contained in its’ few pages and, like all great works of art, never ceases to reveal more of itself each time it is viewed. And, like all great works of art, never ceases to reveal something of ourselves to us.
