Antigone is a Greek tragedy written by Sophocles and is essentially a continuation of Oedipus The King, focusing on his four children long after his and Jocasta’s deaths. As a brief recap, Oedipus was the former king of Thebes who unknowingly fulfilled a prophecy made before he was born that said he would kill his father and marry his mother. Antigone’s fierce loyalty and determination to honor her brother’s memory is what forms the spine of this play.
The tragedy focuses on the aftermath of a very brief battle between Antigone’s two eldest brothers, fighting for the kingship of Thebes. Polyneikes is described as the rebel who joined the Argive coalition against Thebes after exile and Eteokles, who has remained loyal to his city. During the attack on Thebes, the brothers end up killing each other, leaving their uncle Kreon to assume the throne. Kreon rewards Eteokles’ loyalty by following customs and burying him with honor while punishing Polyneikes, leaving him unburied outside the city gates and passing a law forbidding the city from mourning or burying him. Kreon’s choice to punish Polyneikes in this manner infuriates Antigone, so she decides to disobey the law to bury her brother. The law in itself carries a grim penalty, stating that anyone caught violating it would be stoned to death. She attempts to persuade her sister to help her with the task, which Ismene refuses to do for fear of punishment for disobeying Kreon’s law.
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After Ismene rejected her plea for help, Antigone stormed off to take care of the ominous business of burying her brother by herself. She is caught in the act by Kreon’s guards, charged with the crime, and is taken back to the family’s palace to face her uncle’s penalty.
Not only does he decide to charge Antigone, but he also includes Ismene in the charge although she had no real part in the burial. His youngest son Haemon, who is engaged to Antigone, attempts to persuade him to change his mind about executing them which leads to an argument between the two. During the argument, Kreon accuses his son of going against him, instead supporting Antigone’s wrongdoing which doesn’t seem to be the case at all even though he does want to keep her alive. From the reader’s viewpoint, Haemon’s side of the argument appears to be that he is only trying to reason with his father, explaining to him why what he was doing was wrong. Kreon still refuses to listen and even threatens to have Antigone killed in front of Haemon for supposedly defying his father in favor of a woman’s love so he angrily informs Kreon that he would not stand for such an act and leaves. Kreon lets Ismene go, realizing that she is innocent, and proceeds to continue Antigone’sentencing despite the earlier argument with his son. They take her outside the city to a deserted hollow cave where they leave her with just enough food so that they don’t acquire any kind of “blood guilt” if she starves to death rather than taking her life.
Shortly after imprisoning her in the cave, Kreon is visited by the blind prophet Tiresias, whom we met previously in Oedipus The King. Tiresias tells him he is making a grave mistake in his decision to leave Polyneikes unburied and imprisoning Antigone, saying that the gods will no longer accept offerings from Thebes because their altars had been tainted by Polyneike’s rotting flesh that was carried off by dogs and birds. He also says the gods are being denied what is rightfully theirs, which is the maimed, un-mourned corpse of Polyneikes. Shortly after the visit with Tiresias, Kreon finally gives up and orders his men to bury the body according to their burial customs as well as giving orders to free Antigone from her imprisonment.
upon reaching the tomb, they are met with an unpleasant surprise…she had decided to hang herself, ready for death since attempting to bury her brother. Haemon is also there, hanging onto her lifeless body and sobbing. Upon realizing that his father has entered, he attempts to lunge at Kreon, full of rage and pain wanting to kill him but is unsuccessful. Instead, he spits in his face and turns his sword on himself, piercing his liver, causing him to die a slow painful death while clinging to Antigone’s body.
A messenger is sent back to the palace to deliver the news to the leader of the chorus when they see Eurydike, Kreon’s wife come into the courtyard from the house. She asks them what happened and they tell her Haemon has died, unable to cope with this news, she turns to go back in the house not saying another word. Kreon returns, carrying their son in his arms wrapped in cloth and grief-stricken, seeing the mistakes he made much too late only to be greeted by more bad news via the messenger and leader of the chorus. They inform him that Eurydike had killed herself after learning of Haemon’s death, incapable of handling another son’s death as they had already lost one when Polyneikes and the Argives attempted to take Thebes by force. The play ends with Kreon begging the gods to end his life and misery as he walks off towards the palace.
There are many themes and interpretations that one could take away from Antigone as mentioned by Rosanna Lauriola in her interpretation of the play (Lauriola, 389). The themes that make themselves quite obvious throughout the story are Antigone’s loyalty to her family, desire to uphold burial traditions because it was god’s will, and doing the right thing. To her, god’s will and laws take precedence over any laws or demands made by man and it is the argument she presents to Kreon upon being caught by his men attempting to bury her brother.
Another theme shows that Kreon and Antigone mirror one another despite their different stances. They share an archetypical case of self-ignorance. They share fault in that neither respect the claims of love by the people surrounding them, stubbornness, and mutual hatred (Minadeo, 154).
In conclusion of this summary, the tragedy is about wisdom and foolishness with the final lesson showing what it means to have good sense and acting on it rather than acting senselessly with a blind disregard of the consequences that may follow.
Works Cited
- Lauriola, Rosanna. “Wisdom and Foolishness: A Further Point in the Interpretation of Sophocles' Antigone.” Hermes, vol. 135, no. 4, 2007, pp. 389–405. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40379138.
- MINADEO, RICHARD W. “CHARACTERIZATION AND THEME IN THE ‘ANTIGONE.’” Arethusa, vol. 18, no. 2, 1985, pp. 133–154. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44578150.
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