Creons Development of Political Authority in Antigone - Essay Example

Creon’s Development of Political ity in Antigone Antigone is a play that deals with many political ideas: among them the appropriate amount of power that can be placed in a single individual, adherence to unjust laws, the effect of personal animosity on political decisions and, covering perhaps all of these the idea of physical force, the most absolute type of power, as is expressed within the phrase the “alliance of spears”. First, this essay will examine the phrase within the context of the particular part of the play that it appears in and in conjunction with those ideas that immediately surround it. The phrase appears in a speech from Creon, the King of the play and the man that wields the most power. He is attempting, by one means or another, to win over his son Haemon to his point of view regarding the burial of the corpse. Essentially, he also wishes him to accept a very straight-forward, but, as shall be seen, rather contradictory view of the nature of political authority. Creon states that “I must keep my kin in line, Otherwise folks outside the family will run wild.” Creon is the titular head of his family and so appeals to the fact that he must keep in his family in order for the city as a whole to follow suit. He then states that he will give “nothing but contempt” from someone who breaks the law and/or tells his masters what to do. But we soon he states an all-important “but”: But when the city takes a leader, you must obey, Whether his commands are trivial, right, or wrong. Morality and virtue, the “right” and the “wrong” are less important to Creon than the absolute obedience to legitimate political authority. Indeed, political authority seems to trump any other concerns. He does not just state this opinion in isolation, he goes on to give an explanation for why this system is good not only for the ruler, but for the city as a whole: And I have no doubt that such a man will rule well, And, later, he will be cheerfully ruled by someone else. In hard times he will stand firm with his spear Waiting for order, a good, law abiding soldier. But reject one man ruling another, and that’s the worse. Anarchy tears up a city, divides a home, Defeats an alliance of spears. Creon’s rather tenuous theory of political authority argues that first, a ruler’s orders should be obeyed without question. Second, that if those orders are obeyed without question he will willingly give up power to another and then be “cheerfully ruled” and third that the whole city will essentially be one of order and discipline. Absolute rulers do not tend to give up authority without a fight or, in a hereditary type of system, before their deaths. The old adage that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely seems to be conveniently avoided by Creon who, with his experience of power, and knowledge of his family history, should know better. Creon essentially sets up a Cartesian world in which a leader is either obeyed (leading to a perfect society) or disobeyed, leading to anarchy. The “alliance of spears”, while superficially strong, is actually rather brittle and fragile in nature. It depends on a system of absolute power and obedience that is almost certain to end in violence within any society. Within Creon’s world, the “alliance of spears” is one that suggests that ‘might makes right’ and that one man’s word becomes the law, rather than the laws that have already been written down. The Aristotelian idea that Man, when a fully involved political animal “is the best of animals”, but when “separated from law and justice is the worst.” is graphically illustrated by Creon’s reliance upon threat, violence and absolute obedience, upon the essentially forced “alliance of spears” that is sure to doom him. Earlier in the play Antigone says that she will ignore Creon’s order because it is based upon injustice and the fact that she obeys a “higher” (in moral terms) law that belongs to those who are below, in Hades. She says, “I will bury him. I will have a noble death, And lie with him, a dear sister and a dear brother. Call it a crime of reverence, but I must be good to those below. I will be there longer than with you.” (l.72-75) A ruler who changes the ‘law’ to whatever he chooses on a whim encourages those around him to do the same. Yes, it is a crime what Antigone is doing, but it is based upon an unjust pronouncement from political authority. She is being, in Aristotle’s phrase, “separated from law and justice”, and thus turns to her own will to tell her what to do. Creon, a little later in the play, reveals that he does possess an extraordinary amount of political insight, at least in a theoretical, if not a practical sense. Thus he says that “no man has a mind that can be fully known, in character or judgment, till he rules and makes law; only then can he be tested in the public eye.” (l.175-177) The words of a an astute and wise politician one might think, but then he continues with the remarkable pronouncement that “I believe that if anyone tries to run a city on the basis of bad policies and holds his tongue because he is afraid to say what is right, that man is terrible.” (1.178-181) But he does not extend this necessity for civil action to the people who are being ruled. The “policy” that Creon is speaking of, the play soon reveals, is that people be buried according to the proper religious rites and basic respect/decency. Creon uses the “you are either with us or against us” type of vocabulary to support the idea that Polyneices should be left for the “birds and dogs” because he fought the “city”. Creon, like many of those who seek to wield absolute power has slipped into the trap of associating the “city” with “himself”. An attack on the King is an attack on the City within the absolutist mentality. It is a foreshadowing perhaps of the French King’s famous statement more than two thousand years later, “l’etat, c’est moi”. The Chorus, with a touch of irony, then comment upon the absolute political authority that Creon is establishing: CHORUS: That is your decision, son of Menoeceus, As to the one who meant our city well And the one who meant it ill. Its up to you: Make any law you want for the dead, or for us who live. CREON: Now look after my commands, I insist. CHORS: Ask someone younger to take up this task. It is the Chorus’s reluctance to have anything practical to do with what Creon has ordered that shows how an “alliance” made simply of “spears” will only last as long as those spears hold absolute power, and as long as the person wielding this authority does not change his mind. The powerful feature of written laws (as opposed to the “law of personal whim” in Antigone) is that if something goes wrong, people can blame it on the law as whole rather than on an individual. But political authority that is wielded as an absolute personal prerogative is precisely what it seems to be: the personal responsibility of one man. The city may be reduced to “anarchy” far more quickly within an “alliance of spears” than it will be within, say, an “alliance of laws.” The Chorus pay lip-service to Creon’s power, but essentially vote with their feet, or lack of movement of their feet, in actually becoming part of his plan. When the inevitable happens and Creon becomes responsible, not only for Antigone’s death, but also for his son’s, he appears, a solitary figure who had misunderstood the true nature of political authority. The Chorus says, “now here is the king himself, he carries in his arms a reminder . . . pointing clearly to the madness that destroys, and its no else’s but his own. The sin was his.” (my emphasis). Indeed. Political power wielded through the spear, thus bringing forced (but not willing) obedience is almost always doomed to failure. In Antigone Creon takes on himself what should be taken on by the “people” through their written laws and the wider ethics that their religious customs (such as burial rites) have created. ______________________________________ Works Cited Sophocles, Antigone. Oxford UP, Oxford: 1983. Read More