Considered by many the finest Greek tragedy ever produced, Antigone unquestionably won over ancient
audiences, capturing first place in the Great Dionysia festival in Athens circa
442 BC. Sophocles set the play in Thebes in the Bronze Age, about eight hundred
years before his time, and populated the play with heroic characters. In doing
so, Sophocles was able to touch dramatically on some of the most significant
themes and political issues of his own day, such as the primacy of the
city-state in Athenian society, without calling attention to them directly; the
setting of Antigone created for his audience a
comfortable distance from the subject matter. A classic Greek tragedy in form, Antigone presents not just one
but two heroes felled by their own tragic flaws. A young woman of unshakable
integrity, Antigone suffers for defying a royal edict and flaunting the laws of
man, while Creon, the king, shows disrespect to the gods and is brought down by
his hubris in defending the power of the state. Also in traditional fashion,
all of the considerable violence in the play occurs offstage; characters bring
reports of it into the drama, allowing audiences to experience catharsis.
Thought to have penned more than 120 plays during his career,
the great Greek dramatist and poet Sophocles is survived by only seven.
Antigone is one of three based on the saga of Thebes, the “city of the seven
gates,” along with Oedipus the
King and Oedipus at Colunus. Though it
is speculated that the plays were not written in chronological order—and each
play certainly stands alone—it can be helpful to the modern reader to
understand the context of Antigone in a mythology that is both
complicated and tragic.
Taken together, the plays tell Sophocles’s rendition of the
Theban saga in which Laius and Jocasta, the king and queen of Thebes, are told
by Apollo at Delphi that any son they produce will kill his father. Frightened
by the pronouncement, they send their infant son out to die. However, a kind
shepherd takes pity on the boy and delivers him to the childless king and queen
of Corinth; the child is named Oedipus. Upon learning from Apollo that he is
meant not only to kill his father but also marry his mother, Oedipus leaves
Corinth for good. Unwittingly, he kills his real father, Laius, in a dispute
and, again unknowingly, marries his widowed birth mother Jocasta after solving
the riddle of the Sphinx and saving Thebes.
Oedipus has four children with Jocasta, two sons and two
daughters, Antigone and Ismene. After discovering his true identity, Oedipus
blinds himself and curses his sons, Eteocles and Polynices, pronouncing that
each will kill the other.Antigone opens
after the two brothers have clashed in battle, Eteocles defending Thebes
against the invading army from Argos led by Polynices; each brother has killed
the other in a fight to the death, with Thebes ultimately repelling the attack
from Argos. Creon, Jocasta’s brother and now ruler of Thebes, refuses to allow
Polynices’s burial, even though Polynices himself once helped rule the city. To
bury the traitor to Thebes, Creon decrees, is a deed punishable by death.
However, prompted by duty to her family and wishing to honor the will of the
gods, Antigone defies Creon’s order. The play begins with her brazen
declaration that she will bury her brother Polynices.
While some critics see Creon as a veiled warning about the
dangers of dictatorship, others posit that Creon is the ultimate symbol of
democratic leadership in that he holds the needs of the city-state above
those of any individual, including himself. Most critics agree, however, that
the initial decisions made by Creon and Antigone are moral choices, honorable
and true, each doing service and duty to different masters. Additionally, both
Creon and Antigone are undone in part because of their inability to compromise
or to consider other points of view. Although Antigone is heralded for her
commitment to honor and her unwillingness to compromise her principles, there
is something lacking in any of us, Sophocles seems to say, when we exhibit
passion without wisdom, a failing as evident in politics today as in Athenian
society. Where man’s civility and ancient tradition meet, there are no
absolutes, nor easy solutions to complex problems. A singleness of purpose and
blind conviction might, in fact, be the best indicators not that we are right,
but that more deliberation is needed to arrive at the best and most responsible
course of action.
By the end of the unit the student will be able to:
- Trace the primary themes in Antigone, including duty, tradition, and the rights of the individual vs. the rights of collective society.
- Explain the political overtones in the play and how they relate to ancient and contemporary audiences.
- Identify examples of the motifs of fate and mythology and discuss their significance.
- Explain how the chorus functions in the play and discuss the significance and form of the choral odes.
- Discuss the noble motives and the fatal flaws of both Antigone and Creon.
- Examine the role of gender in the play.
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