LRJ #2

LRJ #2

There are multiple threads of repeated imagery and concepts that are weaved throughout the tragedy of Antigone. One consistently repeated concept is the imortance of a proper burial. This can be seen in Antigone's seasoned desire to bury the body of her late brother Polyneices. Ismene, her sister, argues, "We must remember, first, that we were born women, as who should not strive with men; next, that we are ruled of the stronger, so that we must obey in these things" (Sophocles). Ismene is referring to the lack of power and voice that women have in her and Antigone's society. At that point in time, Greece (and most of world, for that matter) viewed women and mens' lesser counterpart. Meant only for making and rearing Greek boys to go out and fight for their kingdom, or Greek girls to grow up and repeat the process of making and rearing Greek children. However, Antigone does not care about this social stigma in the slightest, and she replies, "If thou yet shouldst have the mind, wouldst thou be welcome as a worker with me. Nay, be what thou wilt; but I will bury him: well for me to die in doing that. I shall rest, a loved one with him whom I have loved, sinless in my crime; for I owe a longer allegiance to the dead than to the living" (Sophocles).

The obvious "fatal flaw" of the princess Antigone is her fiery and headstrong nature, which eventually would result in the death of her, as well as the death of several others. However, her death would have never occured had it not been for the ignorance of her uncle, Creon, king of Thebes. The ignorance of Creon is the very factor that drives the plot of Antigone and is what eventually brings about his anagnorisis, peripeteia, and catharsis.

The oracle Teiresias warns Creon of a most dismal fate for having condemned Antigone for honoring the dishonored, "A time not long to be delayed shall awaken the wailing of men and of women in thy house. And a tumult of hatred against thee stirs all the cities whose mangled sons had the burial-rite from dogs, or from wild beasts, or from some winged bird that bore a polluting breath to each city that contains the hearths of the dead." (Sophocles)

The peripeteia of Creon occurs at this point because it is Teirias' saying of the prophecy that makes it occur soon after. In an attempt to right his wrongs, Creon sets out to free Antigone as a means of avoiding the horrible prophecy. Instead, he finds that his son has killed himself due to Antigone's own suicide, and soon after Creon's wife Eurydice would stab herself through her heart. Creon's catharsis occurs after the finding of his newly late wife, when he feels as if he couldn't have lost anymore and he cries out, "Woe, woe! I thrill with dread. Is there none to strike me to the heart with two-edged sword?-O miserable that I am, and steeped in miserable anguish!" (Sophocles) In the end though, the tragedy is resolved through Creon's last statement of realization or his anagnorisis, "I know not which way I should bend my gaze, or where I should seek support; for all is amiss with that which is in my hands,-and yonder, again, a crushing fate hath leapt upon my head." (Sophocles).

Works Cited

Sophocles. "Antigone." The Internet Classic Archive. Trans. R.C. Jebb. 4 Oct 2000. Classics. mit. edu. 25 November 2008 <http://classics.mit.edu/sophocles/antigone.html.>