Antigone, by Sophocles - Essay Example

Being relatives they hate each other so much that it makes them kill each other. So, the tragedy starts with the fact of having two dead bodies and the law to bury one of the brothers with honors and the second one to be left in the field to be torn to pieces by wild animals. This is the outset of the tragedy. Antigone is the blood sister of the killed brothers and she faces the moral dilemma. Weather to break the law or to stay a law-abiding citizen and leave her brother to have eternal sufferings.

There are three main problems raised in the tragedy of Antigone: 1. whether a person in Ancient Greece could be left without burial; 2. whether the written laws are higher than the laws of nature and Gods; 3. whether Creon is a good ruler for the country. At the very beginning of the tragedy Antigone buries her brother, though in a very symbolic way. Being a subtle and weak woman she cannot provide the proper burial ritual that is why she just strews him with soil. It has the meaning of the dead being in soil.

The thing is that Ancient Greek deeply believed in life after death and it can be said for sure they set their hopes to it even more that to the terrain life. The way a person is buried was of great importance and determined the way a soul would exists in afterlife. The soul of a person that is not buried under the proper ritual is doomed to unbearable sufferings and eternal embarrassment. Knowing it Creon gives his decision to leave the dead body of Polyneices in the field to be torn by wild animals.

According to Greek believes it was the most disgraceful and horrible thing for the soul. A soul is sure to be taken to the most awful place of the underground Kingdom. By doing this Creon wants to show that he really cares about his nation because he punishes the enemy in the toughest way. After knowing who broke the law Creon sets the death penalty to Antigone. Creon is so conceited and egoistical that he does not even listen to Antigone’s pleads. He does not take into account the devotion of Antigone or her sister’s love; he can see only an offender of the country laws.

The power muffles all his human features and the ability to understand people. His first priority is the nation’s honor and prosperity. Sophocles pays attention to the ethical problem of the priority of the written lows over the unwritten ones. The unwritten law claims that any worrier who is brave enough to fight is to be buried in a proper way. Creon in his strive for power, accepts only the laws of the state he rules. He has the option whether to punish Antigone for her breaking the law or to understand her desire to help her brother in afterlife.

Sophocles in his tragedy shows that people of Theban are for their princess, they consider Creon to be a monster who chooses the cruelest punishment for a young girl – to be buried alive in a chamber. “The German poet Friedrich Holderlin, whose translation of the play had strong impact on Heidegger's reading, brings out a more subtle reading of the play: he focusses on Antigone's legal and political status within the palace, her privilege to be the hearth (according to the legal instrument of the epiklerate) and thus protected by Zeus” (Judith 2000).

In other words he focuses on the problem of the priority option: who a person is, first of all, a citizen or an individual with his love, hatred etc. Many scientists still dispute on the problem of