After reading the ancient Greek plays consisting of Antigone and Medea, I felt that both main characters held strong ideas and arguments. From Antigone, one can visualize a strong-willed and intelligent girl (Antigone), who placed immense love and trust in her family regardless of their misguided actions. It is through this love of hers that she decided to disobey the edict placed by the new ruler, Creon, regarding the improper burial and humiliation of Polyneices (her brother). As a result, her attempts to give proper burial to her brother lead to her arrest, imprisonment, and death. Meanwhile, Medea presents readers/viewers a powerful, godlike woman (Medea) who was betrayed by the man for whom she sacrificed everything. This betrayal leads …show more content…
Whenever people are willing to sacrifice themselves for their beliefs and actions, there are always others who view them with honor, respect, and admiration. Thus, Antigone already had a couple strong elements to her argument, but she presents even stronger ideas in her argument with Creon over her attempted burial of her brother. During this argument, Creon constantly points out how Antigone is breaking the law and burying a traitor (Polyneices) who slayed her honorable brother (Eteocles). Antigone refutes his points through a strong assessment that stresses important ideas that many could understand as being reasonable. For example, Antigone refuted Creon's statement about her insulting her brother Eteocles by refuting, "The dead man would not say that I insult it." This point illustrated the idea that when we die, regardless of whatever emotions or grudges we held toward a person, they are utterly meaningless since we no longer exist in the physical world. Another strong point she used to refute Creon was that she buried Polyneices not as a traitor, but …show more content…
However, Medea's endgame and her horrendous actions toward her innocent children were the major reason for my gravitation toward Antigone's argument as being more convincing. In the play entitled Medea, Medea herself is suffering from a deep sorrow of having been betrayed by the man she loved and for whom she had sacrificed her family, honor, and life. It is in this sorrow that her anger and cries for injustice build to a point that she finds herself being exiled from Corinth by King Creon, the father of her husband's/Jason's new bride. Faced with such a harsh reality of being exiled and losing everything she once held dear, we witness Medea create a plot to punish all offending parties for their humiliation of her. While her plan did consist of horrible actions just as I mentioned above, the ideas utilized in her argument brought a strong defense of her position. An example of such an idea can be shown with how Medea stated, "Of all the living creatures with a soul and mind, we women are the most pathetic. First of all, we have to buy a husband: spend vast amounts of money, just to get a master of our body—to add insult to injury. And the stakes could not be higher: will you get a decent husband, or a bad one?" From this statement alone, Medea provides to her argument the idea of the inequality that
Another reason why Antigone was so against Creon’s decision to with held Polyneices from a proper burial was because she thought that it's not what the gods would have wanted, and that the gods are much more powerful that Creon. However, Creon didn't just affect Antigone, he affected his whole family, but in particular, his son Haemon, destined to marry Antigone, when he sent Antigone to
Also, while Antigone is fully motivated to give her family a proper burial, Antigone also criticizes her family, Ismene, for being too much of a sissy and a conformist. For illustration, Ismene insists that whether they agree with or authorize Creon's action is fully inapplicable since Creon is the sovereign of Thebes, and thus, they must “ observe the bones who stand in power ”( Sophocles, 62). Ismene’s belief that simply following Creon’s law is the stylish course of action easily reveals the antipode between her and Antigone. While Ismene wants to bury Polynices just as important as Antigone does, she doesn't believe that burying her family is enough of a defense to simply ignore the law, and clearly enough to die for. This contradiction
He is trying to be just but his vision and actions are clouded. Creon explains that he will not allow the burial of Polyneices because of what he did to his people which was betrayal. In Sophocles, Antigone it says “whose one idea was to spill the blood of his blood and sell his own people into slavery—Polyneices”. This shows that Creon is doing this for his people and to respect the fact that they deserve justice. Creon is just trying to help his empire and he believes it is fair for Polyneices to not get buried because of his actions against his people.
In the play, Antigone by Sophocles when a new man Creon becomes king he forbids a traitor's body to be buried so that he would be an example, this man being Polyneices, Antigone’s brother. Antigone, fearless in her actions, will not let her brother's body rot in the street even if it's against Creon's rules, but Creon due to his pride will not listen to anyone including Antigone. This will lead to pain and suffering for Creon later in the story. The main character Creon is foolish, for killing Antigone for trying to give her brother a burial. Because he would not hear out Tiresias or others.
Creon shows an extraordinary amount of stubbornness throughout the story. An example is seen when Antigone wishes to give her brother, Polyneices a proper burial so he can have a pleasant afterlife with the Gods. Creon, as king wishes to have him rot in the fields because he turned his back on the state in which the events occurred.
Antigone being the one to fight for her beliefs and obeying the god's laws attempts the burial of Polyneices and goes against Creon’s law to prove to him that he’s in over his head that he has too much pride in himself, in lines 15-35 Antigone claims that she is going to go
“…even if she were closer than my sister’s child, closer than any who shares my family’s chapel, she and her sister will not escape the worst fate” by saying that, he believes she will stop with the arguments and simply follow his laws however, it’s quite the opposite what happens next. She mocks him even more by questioning, “Do you want something more than killing me?” Later on into the scene, they start discussing the death of Polynices and Eteocles, while Creon believes that Polynices shouldn’t deserve to be buried and that the gods wouldn’t like him because he is bad person. “The good don’t want to share honors with the bad” However, in the other hand Antigone replies by saying that both of them should be buried, this causes Creon to enrage and exclaim “No woman will rule
Another way this quote can relate to the book is Antigone goes through great sacrifice in order to bury her brother. For instance, if she gets caught Creon will punish he for the crime. During a conversation with her sister Ismene, Antigone says “I never did a nobler thing than bury my brother Polyneices”(Sophocles 32). This quote means that despite the fact that she can be punished, Antigone is still proud of what she did. Creon had threatened to bury Antigone to death but she did not let that stop her
Polyneices and Eteocles both die tragically in battle. Creon believes that Eteocles died noblely and therefore deserves a proper burial, but Polyneices died a “traitor” and doesn’t deserve a burial at all. Antigone rightfully believes this to be absurd, she thinks both of her brothers deserve a proper burial. This leads Antigone to make the brave decision to bury her brother against Creon’s will. Antigone then urges Ismene to help her and that it is the right thing to do, but Ismene insists that it is wrong to go against Creon.
According to Creon, Polyneices is a “traitor” because he fought against his state. Because of Polyneices’s actions, Creon states that Antigone should “leave Polyneices without burial” and “watch
Both of these characters had great power but they feared losing that power or being seen as weak. Creon, by not allowing Polyneices to be buried, set the tragic events into motion. Creon wanted to show his strength through this decree, he wanted to be obeyed and he wanted to be seen as strong and unwavering. When he discovered that Antigone had buried her brother he sentenced her to death. When advisors told him he should reconsider his decision, he would not listen “Do you want me to show myself weak before the people/or to break my sworn word?
In the classic play by Sophocles, Antigone is a tragic story of the bold Antigone who defied her uncle, King Creonʻs, edict by burying her brother, Polyneices, who died attacking the city of Thebes, trying to take the power away from their brother, Eteocles, who refused to share the throne with Polyneices. Even though Antigone knew that going against Creon and burying her brother would not end well for her, she still choose to risk her life to do what is right. After being caught breaking the law, Antigone is appointed to be locked away, isolated in a cave until she dies, but she hangs herself at the end. At the same time, things for Creon are not looking good, as everyone around him seems to be against him in his decision for punishing Antigone. Everyone Creon cares about kills themselves from a curse that is put on Creon for not following the Godsʻ laws.
Arguably she made a heroic decision, but deciding what her intent was behind those decisions is questionable. Undoubtedly one of Antigone’s motivations was to be certain that both of her brothers were resting
In this quote, she is trying to harn Creon that although he thinks very highly of himself, he will never be able to anything to disrupt the gods and their unwritten laws (being that all men deserve burial). Additionally, the word choice and tone used by the characters also differs. When Creon talks he makes it clear that he thinks of himself quite highly and is convinced that he is above everyone else because of his excessive pride and noble stature. This leads to a tone in his speech that is very obnoxious and off-putting. To the contrary, Antigone regards herself quite low and stands for
Creon believes Antigone should forget about her brother because he is dead. Creon expresses to Antigone that her actions will result in terrible consequences. Creon exemplifies that once someone dies from another city they are irrelevant by saying, “An enemy is and enemy even when dead” (15). Creon assumes Polyneicis is a trader because he vanished from the city of Thebes. Due to this incident Creon does not see a right for his burial.