Joseph Cannizzaro
Prof. Brady
Question #1
Antigone is one of Sophocles greatest tragedies around 441 BC in ancient Greece. At this time in history, burials were an important ceremony that allowed the body to join the afterlife. Some background before Antigone had taken place, she and her sister returned to the city, Thebes, to prevent their brothers, Polyneices and Eteocles, from fighting a war over the throne. The brothers end up fighting a war and both died. Eteocles was given a proper burial by Creon for defending Thebes, Polyneices on the other had wasn’t given a proper burial and was seen as a traitor, so Creon believed that his body was to be left out to rot in the open. Creon is Antigone’s uncle, who has now inherited the throne to the city Thebes. Antigone knows the consequences of going against Creon but she continues do what she believes is right. Throughout the play Antigone comes off as a very spiritual and family oriented person.
Antigone kept showing that she will always put family first and do what was right. For example in the play it says “Yes, indeed; for those two brothers of ours; in burial has not Creon honored the one, dishonored the other?"(Antigone 25-26). This shows how Antigone was all about family and doing what was morally right versus the civil law. The reason Antigone is “shouting it out” is because she was trying to make a change and show Creon and the people of Thebes that she will not follow his laws when they are unjust and unfair. However she follows the real ruler of Thebes, which are the Gods. Even though burying her brother, Polyneices, is now completely prohibited she stills risks everything to give her brother the proper burial he deserved. Antigone shows she is a strong and courageous woman throughout the play by not allowing anyone to persuade her towards not giving her brother a burial. Another example of Antigone being bold was when she asked Ismene to help her with the burial of their brother and Ismene was against the idea of going behind Creon’s back. Antigone proceeded to say "Be as you choose to be; but for myself I myself will bury him. It will be good to die, so doing. I shall lie by his side, loving him as he loved me."(Antigone 81-84). This example emphasizes her goal on giving her brother a proper burial and putting family above all even if it means breaking the law.
Later Antigone is talking to Creon and proclaims that she is a religious criminal, "I shall be a criminal- but a religious one" (84-85). Antigone calls herself a religious criminal because she is breaking the law of society to follow what she believes the gods would do if they were put in this situation. After reading the play and discussing the conflicts in the play with my classmates, the conflict of the play is self vs. self. Antigone has crucial choices to make and each choice influenced the next choice, she made a choice to go against Creon and provide her brother with a burial that got her imprisoned and then she eventually killed herself. This was all to prove the point of believing in what is right and that the civil laws aren’t always the right thing to do. Creon also had many choices to make that had an affect on everyone in play, his stubbornness and his determination made him lose focus of what was morally right.
Antigone was an independent woman who fought for what she believed to be the right thing to do. Antigone is very similar to the American activist in the civil rights movement, Rosa Parks. Parks, an african american, refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus in 1955. Parks helped initiate the civil rights movement in the United States. Antigone is similar to Parks in multiple ways, for example they both believed in making change and that they are helping not only them, but help better the society they lived in. Antigone went to give her brother a proper burial while knowing Creon will punish anyone for this act of disobedience. Parks, being a woman also which made it very difficult to do what she did, was a vigorous woman who knew she was doing something wrong by sitting in the wrong part of the bus, but it didn’t bother her because she believed that what she was doing was morally right.
These women have made society today a better place and have offered a numerous amount of opportunities due to their sacrifice and stubbornness.
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