ANTIGONE

• Greek playwright Sophocles wrote the last play in

the Theban Trilogy, Antigone, around 442 B.C.
• The Theban Trilogy consists of Oedipus Rex
(Oedipus the King), Oedipus at Colonus, and
Antigone, but the play considered the last of the
three was, ironically, written first.
• Only seven of Sophocles's 123 tragedies have
survived to the modern era—with the trilogy
surviving the ages intact.
• These three plays are perhaps the most famous
of the seven, with Antigone performed most
often.
• Antigone tells the story of the title character,
daughter of Oedipus (the former king of
Thebes, who unknowingly killed his father and
married his mother, and who renounced his
kingdom upon discovering his actions), and
her fight to bury her brother Polyneices
against the edict of her maternal uncle, Creon,
the new king of Thebes.
• It is a story that pits the law of the gods—
"unwritten law"—against the laws of
humankind, family ties against civic duty, and
man against woman.
• Many playwrights in Ancient Greece used
mythological stories to comment on social and
political concerns of their time.
• This is what Sophocles may have intended
when he wrote Antigone.
• Based on the legends of Oedipus, Sophocles
may have been trying to send a message to
the Athenian general, Pericles, about the
dangers of authoritarian rule.
• These tragedies were written to be performed
at the Great Dionysia (a festival in honour of
the god Dionysus, the god of fertility, theatre,
and wine) in Athens.
• Attending these plays was considered a civic
duty, and even criminals were let out of jail to
attend.
• Antigone won Sophocles first prize at the
festival and was an enormous success.
• It is still performed today, and has been
adapted by French playwright Jean Anouilh,
who set the play during World War II.
 THE STORY OF OEDIPUS
• Laius, one of the Theban kings, out of some
anxiety and concern once consulted the Greek
god Apollo about the status of his kingdom
after his passing.
• Laius particularly was concerned to know if he
would have a son.
• Basing himself on the oracle of Delphi, Apollo
replied that Laius would surely have a son
with his wife Jacosta.
• But the son was predestined to kill him.
• Laius tortures and abandons his son
• Fearing for his life, when Oedipus is born,
Laius does some bizarre things.
1. He pierces the child’s ankles.
2. Binds them together with a leather
thong.
3. Gives away the infant to a shepherd to
be killed by exposure to the elements.
• The shepherd obeyed the king in the first
instance because of fear and respect.
• But he wasn’t cruel and cold-blooded enough
to do as the king had instructed him.
• So he arranged for another shepherd to do
the evil act.
• The shepherd to whom the infant was handed
for a second time too could not commit the
heinous act.
• And so he took the infant with him to his
native Corinth.
• The ruling couple of Corinth, Polybus and
Merope, were childless.
• They immediately adopted the abandoned
child and named him Oedipus, meaning
swollen foot.
• But Oedipus was not well accepted in the
kingdom.
• He was spoken of offensively as not being the
son of Polybus the king.
• Greatly troubled in his heart, Oedipus traveled to
Delphi to consult the oracle which prophesied
that he was destined to kill his father and marry
his mother.
• Fearing that he would kill his foster father,
Polybus the king of Corinth, Oedipus vowed never
to return back to Corinth.
• On the new road he took to his future, he
stopped at a meeting point of three roads.
• He was possibly hindered from progressing by the
haughty aristocrat and his entourage.
• Oedipus got into a confrontation with the group
and killed the aristocrat and his entourage, except
a humble shepherd.
• Oedipus took to his journey which brought
him to Thebes.
• Thebes was at that time suffering at the hands
of a Sphinx – a monstrous winged lion with
the head of a woman.
• The Sphinx posed a riddle to all travelers and
devoured them if they did not give the right
answer.
• When Oedipus entered the city, the Sphinx
posed the riddle to Oedipus too.
• The riddle:

• ‘What animal goes on four legs in the

morning, two legs at noon, and three in the
evening?’
• Answer:

• MAN

• It is the human being who crawls on all four in

infancy
• Walks on two through most of life
• And is supported by a walking stick in old age.
• Accepting defeat the Sphinx jumped off a cliff and
Oedipus was credited with rescuing Thebes from a bad
omen.

• He was crowed king in place of the slain king Laius, and

married Laius’ wife Jocasta.

• When the Theban shepherd whose life Oedipus had

spared on his journey finally reached Thebes, he
discovered that the man who had killed his master and
his entourage had become king.

• Fearing for his life he withdrew himself to the outskirts

of the city where he spent the rest of his days in
relative quietness.
• Thebes enjoyed several years of prosperity under
Oedipus, during which time he had four children
with Jocasta.

• But then came a plague which devastated the

land.

• The Delphi oracle revealed that Thebes was

harboring a serious pollution.
• The pollution was responsible for King Laius’
death.
• And, the plague would not be taken off Thebes
till the pollution was eradicated.
• Quite innocently Oedipus sought to know
from the Oracle what the pollution was; who
also was the killer of King Laius.

• He was terribly traumatized to realize that it

was him.

• His escape from Corinth was intended to avoid

fulfilling the curse of the Oracle of Delphi.
• But in the process he unknowingly ended up
killing his real father.
• Chaos in the royal family of Thebes
• Jacosta, upon learning that Oedipus is in fact
her own son, hangs herself.
• Oedipus takes her broach and burst his eyes
till he is totally blind.
• The blinded Oedipus goes into exile with his
two daughters Antigone and Ismene.
• The two sons Eteocles and Polyneices remain
in Thebes.
• Creon, Jacosta’s brother, is installed king till
the boys grow into adults and take over the
reins of Thebes.
• When the boys grow they agree to rule
Thebes alternately.
• But Etiocles does not keep his word.
• He rules first, but when his time is up, he
refuses to hand over power to his brother.
• Polyneices is married to the daughter of the
king of Argos.
• This means that his political ambitions and
well as pressures are inspired by connections
beyond Thebes, and will competing kingdoms.
• Eventually Polyneices leads an army of seven
city-states against Thebes.
• Thebes resisted the attack, but both brothers
die in the battle.
• The vacuum at the top brings back Creon as
ruler of Thebes.
• He decrees that Eteocles should be buried
with state honors for doing his duty to protect
Thebes against her aggressors.
• But since Polyneices had betrayed Thebes and
her people, his body was to be left unburied,
to decay under the heat of the sun and to be
eaten up by scavengers.
• It is at this point that the story begins.

• What happens later in the tragedy is that:

• Antigone rebels.
• She is, however, caught in the act of rebellion
and is sentenced to die by being walled up in a
cave.
• Her fiance Haemon, son of Creon, rebels
against his father’s edict, and attempts to free
her.
• But it is too late. He finds her dead having
hung herself.
• Haemon curses his father, Creon, and stabs
himself to death.
• Meanwhile Tiersias, the blind prophet of
Thebes, warns Creon that the gods were very
angry with Creon for disturbing the cosmic
order by his miscalculations and
misjudgments.
• What wrong had Creon done?

• He had left a dead person unburied, and had

buried a living person.

• Creon takes immediate action to rectify his

mistakes.

• He arranges for a burial for Polyneices.

• But when he is on his way to release Antigone,
he is told that she had already died.
• Even worse, his son Haemon died too being
unable to bear the death of his beloved
Antigone.
• Unable to bear the loss of her son, the queen,
Creon’s wife Eurydice, too had killed herself.
• So devastated was Creon by the ramifications
of his edicts that he described himself as ‘no
more a live man than one dead.’
 ANTIGONE
A TEXTUAL STUDY
FROM MORAL PERSPECTIVE
• The stage is set in Thebes where Oedipus was
King.
• Antigone and Ismene – two half sisters of
Oedipus are its main characters.
• Haemon is Antigone’s fiance, and the son of
Creon.
• Eurydice is Haemon’s mother and Creon’s
wife.
• The scene opens with Antigone in
conversation with her sister, Ismene.
• The mood is sombre – even worrisome for the
sisters.
• At the very outset Antigone throws up an
issue of confusing moral probabilities.
• ‘You and I’, she tells Ismene, ‘are left alive to
pay the final penalty to Zeus for Oedipus.’
• [It is like saying, the fathers have eaten sour
grapes and the sons’ teeth are at edge].
• The transgressions of a man are left to his
family to pay for.
• Antigone complains that it has brought her
unimaginable misery, shame and dishonour.
• The reaction to Oedipus’ misbehaviour has been
sheer madness. In her words it was monstrous.
• The General has made the news public by
sticking posters of the misbehaviour of Oedipus
all over the city.
• A mass sentiment, Antigone complains, was being
created by their enemies to hurt them and their
friends.
• Ismene does not know about the reaction to
their father, Oedipus’ misdeeds.
• She is still grieving for her dead brothers,
Polyneices and Eteocles, who killed each other
in the battle between Thebes and the city of
Argos.
• Because Polyneices fought in Argos’ army
against Thebes, Creon their maternal uncle
who was the king of Thebes would not allow a
burial for Polyneices.
• Antigone laments, ‘Creon promotes one of
them (Eteocles), and shames the other
(Polyneices).’

• It is a story that pits the law of the gods—

"unwritten law"—against the laws of
humankind, family ties against civic duty, and
man against woman.
• Read how Creon orders the corpses to be treated:
Antigone in verse 20 – 30 - pp. 3 and 4

Public stoning to death for anyone who tries to

bury Polyneices’ corpse – verse 35.

After Antigone narrates this story to her sister

Ismene, she presents her with the first moral
dilemma:

Verse 37 – Show your colors: Are you true to

your birth? Or a coward?
• Implications
• From Antigone’s point of view

1. To be moral you should be courageous.

2. To be moral you should be loyal to your
relationships.
• Verses 40 – 44: Ismene is already finding a
way out.
She expresses her inability to make any
difference.
She cannot resist the authorities.
She considers herself insignificant: ‘What can
I do to loosen or pull tight the knot?’ – verse
40.
Verse 44: ‘Do you mean to bury him? Against
the city’s ordinance?, she exclaims almost in
disbelief and agony.
• From Ismene’s perspective questions of
morality are
1. a complex matter
2. Not for the feeble
3. Not for those who cannot make a difference
4. Not for those who cannot challenge the
establishment
5. Not for those who do not have within them
the capacity to rebel
• Antigone says the authorities will never catch
her betraying her dead brother.
• Ismene cannot believe her ears. She thinks it
is horrible for Antigone to say that when
Creon the king has clearly given instructions
forbidding any person to bury Polyneices.
• Ismene is not pro-establishment, but she
cannot imagine rebeling against the king.
Antigone’s primary loyalty is to family.
• Verse 49: Antigone – He has no right to keep
me from my own.
• Verses 50 – 69: Ismene tries to reason with
Antigone.
• Her chief argument – Her family had brought
terrible shame on itself. Her father Oedipus
gauged his eyes from guilt and died. Her
mother hanged herself. The two brothers died
in battle killing each other.
• Ismene reasons that she does not want the
family now to be fully exterminated due to
infamous reasons. She desires to retrieve
some respect back for the family by not doing
another socio-politically wrong thing.
• Ismene also presents other moral issues for
her decision not to rebel.
• ‘Now think about the two of us. We are
alone.’
• Ismene seems to take the view that justice is
not on the side of the minority/ of the feeble/
of those who stand alone.
• A lone person cannot contend with or
challenge the system; not even if such a
person has been a princess.
• No one will support or sympathize with the
wishes and feelings of those who are alone or
on the other side of the popular opinion.

• Truth and justice for all practical purposes

then it seems is simply the view of the
majority or of those in power.
• How horrible it will be, she says, to die outside
the law, if we violate a dictator’s decree!

• A dictator’s decree in this case is equivalent to

the law. To challenge the decree is to be
lawless.
• Ismene is being cynical here of truth and
justice as it was understood and upheld in
ancient Greece.
• There was no sense of good being sourced
from good, and evil being sourced from evil.
• With this instance as an example, she
strikingly demonstrates how evil can lay claim
to goodness in the political and justice system.
• Ismene points to another issue in the
imbalance of power – the gender issue.

• We have to keep this fact in mind: We are

women and we do not fight with men. We’re
subject to them because they’re stronger.
And we must obey this order even if it hurts
us more.
• Culturally and from a pragmatic perspective it
would be foolish for them to challenge Creon.
• From Ismene’s view point, there could never
be a victory for them.
• Not only because of political power being fully
vested with Creon, but also because it will
entail a fight between a man and two women.
• The final result of such a fight, according to
Ismene, is easily predictable.
• Men always win, because they are stronger.
• Once again, Ismene contends that truth and
justice are always on the side of the strong,
regardless of their morality.

• But she also adds here that culture too is a

determinant in matters of justice.
• And it is not always on the side of the truth.
• For, culturally women ‘do not fight with men.’
They are ‘subject to men because men are
stronger.’
• Ismene prefers to seeks forgiveness from the
dead for not honoring them.
• But she explains that she is forcibly held
against her will by ‘men (who are) in charge.’
• She adds that by nature she is not the kind of
person who sets too high ideals for herself, or
distant goals.
• In other words, she lives in the present and
does things that will ensure her safety and
relative well being in the present. She does
not naturally think too far and deep about the
implications of her decisions and actions.
• In all these different personalities occupying
different positions in life, and with different
character traits and temperaments, Sophocles
seeks to show that not everyone has, or can
have, a uniform view of what is right action in
a given circumstance.
• People’s unique circumstances, their moral
undergirding, sense of self-worth,
perspectives on life and character – all
contribute to their distinct understandings of
what is right and wrong attitude and/or
action.
• Verses 70 – 75: Antigone is offended. She
passes moral judgment:

Go on insulting what the gods hold dear.

For Antigone it has become an issue of

obeying men contrasted with obeying the
gods.
• Verse 78: Antigone explains her stand.
• Her moral decision has not been compelled by
a motivation to take sides with Creon’s
establishment or against it.

• Her moral decision is compelled by the limits

of her character:

• By my very nature I cannot possibly take arms

against the city.
• Verse 80: Antigone is convinced that Ismene
is making excuses.

• Class discussion: Would this be a typical

reaction from those who take an attitude of
moral superiority?
• A DIALOGUE OF EXISTENTIAL VALUES
CONTRASTED WITH ULTIMATE VALUES – VS. 81ff.

• Verse 81: Ismene thinks Antigone’s decision to

rebel will prove costly for her. She expresses
worry for Antigone.

• Verse 82: Antigone thinks Ismene does not have

the courage to take a moral decision because she
is not morally upright.

• ‘Don’t worry about me. Put your own life

straight.’
• Verses 84 – 89: Behind the mind of the
suicide bomber

• Ismene the pragmatist wants the plan to be

kept a secret.
• Why?
1. She is too ashamed of its ethical
ramifications for her family.
2. She is too worried for Antigone’s life, and
possibly her own.
3. She basically thinks it is not a good idea.

On the other hand, Antigone wants everyone to

know about it.
Why?
1. Because from her perspective it is morally
justified. She is not harming anyone – only
helping those who cannot help themselves.
2. She considers Creon to be an unjust ruler, and
from her perspective to rebel against unjust laws
isn’t wrong.
3. She considers the life beyond the here and the
now to be more important, and seeks to be on
the side of the dead.
• Is there in all this a political sympathy for the
enemy country the rebellious brother sought
to fight for?
• We are not told that as yet, and hence cannot
assume a political reason such as that.