"It is night in Thebes. The preceding days have seen the death of Eteocles and Polynices, brothers to Antigone and Ismene, at each other's hands. The invading army of Polynices has retreated, and Creon, Antigone's uncle, rules in Thebes. Antigone approaches an altar in the palace, Ismene following close behind. Antigone bemoans the death of her brothers, and Ismene echoes her sorrow. Antigone tells how Creon has decreed that no one may bury or mourn Polynices, and that the punishment for doing so is death. While Ismene says that there is nothing to do, Antigone insists that she will bury Polynices, and asks for Ismene's help. Ismene argues that Antigone risks death by disobeying Creon, that she loves Polynices but must follow the king's decree. Antigone rejects Ismene's arguments, saying that she holds honor and love higher than law and death. Antigone exits, resolved to her task; Ismene says that she will always love Antigone, and then withdraws into the palace.
The Chorus comes forward, praising the glory of Thebes and denouncing the proud Polynices, who almost brought the city to ruin. Creon then enters, assuring the citizens that the state is once again safe, and that he now rules in Thebes. He announces that Eteocles, who defended Thebes, will be buried as a hero, but that a king's edict forbids anyone to bury Polynices, who raised arms against the city. The Chorus says that it will obey Creon. Just then, a sentry enters, unable to say what he has to report to the king, terrified of his fury. Creon orders him to tell his story, and he does: someone has given proper burial rites to the body of Polynices, and no one knows who has done it. Unsure what to do, the sentries finally resolved to tell Creon, and this sentry was sent to bear the news. The Chorus suggests that Polynices' burial may be the work of the gods, but Creon denounces this as absurd, arguing that the gods would never side with a traitor. Instead, he is quite sure that dissidents in the city have bribed one of the sentries to defy the edict, and he accuses this sentry who has come to tell him the news of the crime. Creon will not listen to his desperate denials, and says that he will be killed if no other suspect is found. Creon returns into the palace; the sentry resolves to leave Thebes forever, and rushes offstage. The Chorus then comes forward and sings of how, though man can dominate the earth, death inevitably masters him in the end. They conclude by scorning the reckless man who would defy authority.
Beginning to Entrance of Antigone -- Analysis
The speech by the Chorus at the end of this section summarizes the theme that has defined this trilogy so far: pride is dangerous; the gods disdain and punish it, and so should the city. Ironically, though, the preceding section has taken the tension within this view to a new height. The problem with this sweeping denial of pride is that that pride is not necessarily opposed to loyalty to the gods, at least to stated loyalty to the gods. Thus, we have competing visions of pride here, with each character working against a character he regards as too prideful. Polynices has killed his brother and himself, but only because he regarded his brother's usurpation of his rule as reckless and against the will of the gods. Creon, in turn, believes that Polynices was the proud figure, and that the gods would agree with him: he therefore decrees that the first-born son of Oedipus is not to be buried.
Of course, the irony here is that it is Creon who will fall, and fall mightily, just as Oedipus did in the first play, due to his prideful refusal to yield in his decree. But Antigone seems just as prideful as Creon here, if not more so: she will defy any law and any concern for state security to perform what she takes to be the will of the gods. But the play implicitly treats her as a heroine. What becomes clear in this section is that 'pride' is something far more complex than it at first appears, something supplemental rather than contrary to obedience to the gods. Even the self-righteous proclamations of the Chorus can be taken as a sort of pridefulness. Thus, while we cannot disregard the factor of pride here, we certainly cannot regard these as simplistic morality tales in which the prideful man is punished, as the Chorus would have us do. Rather, we must take a more critical look at the way 'pride' works in these plays, and look at how other factors might motivate the characters and their punishments.
One of the most important of these factors, of course, is politics. While Polynices and Creon proclaim that they are following the will of the gods, their actions seem to be motivated by more worldly motives: acquisition of power and establishment of order. Even Antigone, whom we presumably respect for the fact that she does not have such ulterior motives, in part derives her status as heroine from the political dimension of her actions: we empathize with Antigone because of her anti-authoritarian voice, not her stated loyalty to the gods. As such, a double drama is at work here, with the discourse of piety layered on a discourse of politics, the layers intersected by a multitude of themes, the most central of which may very well be pride.
Entrance of Antigone to Entrance of Haemon -- Text Summary
The Chorus sees Antigone approach, escorted by that same sentry who resolved never to return. The sentry tells the Chorus that it is Antigone who buried the body, and calls for Creon. Creon enters, and the sentry tells him that, after he and the other sentries disinterred the body, which was beginning to rot, a sudden dust-storm blinded them. When it passed, they saw Antigone, who cursed them and began to bury the body again. They immediately seized her, and interrogated her, and she denied nothing. When Creon asks her if she did this, Antigone freely admits that she did. Creon dismisses the sentry, and asks Antigone if she knew that he forbade anyone to bury Polynices. She says that she did. Questioned again, Antigone argues that she was defying neither the gods nor justice, only the decree of an unjust man. Creon accuses Antigone of being just as irrational as her father, condemns both Antigone and her sister to death, and calls for his guards to bring Ismene.
Antigone tells Creon that she is tired of his speeches, and that he ought to kill her. She tells him that all of Thebes is on her side, but is too cowardly to tell the king. When Creon asks her why she was not concerned with Eteocles, she says that he had already been buried properly, and that Polynices, whom she loved equally, deserved the same. Ismene comes forth, weeping, and says that she will share the guilt with her sister. Antigone refuses to let her do this, arguing that she acted alone, and heaping insults on her sister for her cowardice. Creon calls them both mad, and again condemns them both to death. Asked by Ismene if he is willing to kill Antigone, the bride of his son, Haemon, Creon claims that he is, that there are other women for Haemon, and that the idea of seeing his son married to a traitor repulses him. Creon orders his guards to tie up the sisters and take them away, which they do. The Chorus comes forth and bemoans the fortunes of the house of Oedipus, which is again moving toward death and sorrow. They pray to Zeus, he whose law prevails.
Entrance of Antigone to Entrance of Haemon -- Analysis
The Oedipus trilogy is structured around a family, and it is nowhere more important to remember this than here. If we think of this scene merely in terms of Creon as king and Antigone as dissident, with Ismene as a sort of co-conspirator, then this scene seems rather dramatic but somewhat cold. We must keep in mind, however, that Antigone and Ismene are nieces to Creon, who treated their father cruelly not so long ago. Of course, in the previous play, they themselves were taken captive by Creon, and it seems odd that this is not noted here. But this deliberate avoidance of that issue is intentional; while Antigone's actions look noble within this text, in context of the trilogy they have an air of revenge to them. Thus, reading this scene in terms of past, particularly family past, does not merely make it more 'emotionally powerful.' It also introduces themes that undercut the way these characters would like to portray themselves.
It is useful to note differences in the way characters portray themselves and the way they actually behave. Their facades continually show cracks: Creon is never quite the unflinching ruler that he makes himself out to be, and Antigone is sometimes better at portraying herself as heroine than she is at being a heroine. In fact she is just as flawed and prideful as Creon. Characters in Antigone are not always what they seem. In the dialogue between Antigone and Ismene, for example, we always have a feeling that neither is quite sincere. Neither are they evidently insincere. Rather, their emotional exchange is constrained by their desire to fit certain appearances.
Entrance of Haemon to Entrance of Tiresias -- Text Summary
The Chorus sees Haemon approaching, and wonders what he thinks of Antigone's arrest. When Creon questions him about his loyalties, Haemon replies that no woman is as important as his father, and that he will obey Creon. Pleased, the king applauds his son's wisdom. Haemon reports that he has heard it said, among the people, that Antigone does not deserve this punishment for her noble-seeming deed, and asks his father not to be so sure of his rightness.
Insulted by the idea that his citizens should tell him how to rule, Creon vigorously defends his absolute authority, and Haemon responds that Creon is merely being stubborn and proud. Creon, enraged, reels off insults at his son, calling him disrespectful and the slave of a woman, and Haemon answers him back in force, even darkly hinting that this murder may cause the death of another. Creon calls for Antigone to be brought out and murdered in front of her groom, but Haemon exclaims that his father will see him no longer, and rushes off. Once his son is gone, Creon concedes that he will not kill Ismene, but promises a living death for Antigone, whom he will wall up in a tomb.
Creon goes back into the palace, and the Chorus sings of the power of love, which cannot be defeated by arms and can drive a sane man mad. Antigone approaches, and the Chorus announces that even they would rebel upon seeing the pitiful girl being led from the palace to her tomb. Antigone tells them her death will be noble, but the Chorus doubts her, regarding her nobility as mortal pride, and comparing her to her father. At this, Antigone raves, and cries out against the fortunes of her family and the unmourned grave toward which she travels. Creon comes out of the palace and insists that Antigone is protesting too much, and tells the guards to take her to her tomb at once. Before leaving, Antigone gives one last defense: she would not have done this were the body her husband's, or her child's, for either can be replaced, but only for a sibling whose parents are dead, the last son of the terrible house of Oedipus. As she is taken away, she cries out that Thebes is ruled by cowardly fools, who punish her for her reverence for the gods. Antigone is taken to her tomb, and the Chorus wails of those figures in mythology who have gone down to fates as miserable as that of Antigone.
Entrance of Haemon to Entrance of Tiresias -- Analysis
The themes introduced in the previous section reverberate even more powerfully here. It would seem that Haemon's first speech to his father is nothing more than show; his words work by process of implication and innuendo until he breaks down to honesty. We can also read Haemon's entire chain of speech as an act, fully premeditated. Whatever our verdict on this, we cannot help but notice how Haemon has made explicit something noted by Antigone in the previous section. Namely, while we have trusted the Chorus throughout to give us an honest account of their feelings on matters, what if the Chorus is not honest? What if it is a character just as self-interested and deceitful as the others?
This is the accusation that Haemon makes, that the Chorus may be cowed by Creon's authority and thus not speaking its mind. Here we see a theme first sounded at the end of the first of these plays: Creon as the anti-dramatist, he who disrupts the spectacle. Here his mere presence disrupts communication between the Chorus and the audience.
At this point, too, another mindset begins to emerge. These voices which Haemon has heard in the streets, which are never heard on stage, which may be Haemon's invention, which call for Antigone's release and directly contradict what Chorus says, become a sort of anti-Chorus. We can neither trust nor distrust them, for we never have the chance; they are never presented to us on-stage. Rather, they linger as echoes, questioning what has been our absolute trust in the proper Chorus.
We also note the paces towards retreat here. The characters' self- righteous pronunciations have become muted. Creon disdains his son, insults and rejects him, but then, once his son is gone, concedes that he will not kill Ismene. Of course, this is not a complete reversal, but it indicates the possibility of one. Similarly, the Chorus, which brays its anger at Antigone, also notes that it too is moved to pity by her plight. Antigone herself advances the oddest argument of all, regarding the irreplacability of Polynices as the reason for her actions. This may seem like a strange excuse at such a moment of high drama. Her argument, of course, points back to the death of Oedipus, but what seems crucial is the slight ironic undercurrent that sounds in her voice. While Antigone does not retract her position, but rather defends it, her mode of defense is so out of key with the moment that it seems to indicate a weakening of her stance.
These movements towards retreat, again, can best be read in terms of the self-dramatizing nature of the characters. They happen at the moments where the proclamations of the characters point towards consequences, or, more accurately, where consequences fall on them because of the roles they have created for themselves, roles that they ever so slightly begin to retract.
Entrance of Tiresias to End -- Text Summary
Tiresias enters, led by a boy. Creon swears that he will obey whatever advice Tiresias gives him, since he owes so much to his past advice. Tiresias tells him that his resolve to refuse burial to Polynices, and his punishment of Antigone for the burial, will bring the curses of the gods down on Thebes. Hearing this, Creon curses Tiresias, calling him a false prophet who traffics in poor advice and rhetoric. Creon accuses all prophets of being power-hungry fools, but Tiresias turns the insult back on tyrants like Creon. The old prophet argues that the rites for the dead are the concerns of gods, not of mortals, who can rule only in this world. Unwilling to hear any more abuse, Tiresias has his boy take him away.
The Chorus is terrified by the prophecy of Tiresias. Creon admits that he is also worried, and will do whatever the citizens recommend. They call for him to free Antigone, and he reluctantly leaves to do so. Once he is gone, the Chorus prays to Dionysus to protect Thebes.
A messenger enters. He tells them what has happened: first of all, Haemon is dead by his own hand. Eurydice, Creon's wife, overhears the commotion. She comes out of the palace and asks the messenger to tell her what has happened. He does: Creon and his entourage first gave proper burial to Polynices, and then heard what sounded like Haemon's voice wailing from Antigone's tomb. They went in and saw Antigone hanging from a noose, and Haemon raving. Creon's son then took a sword and thrust it at his father. Missing, he turned the sword against himself, and died embracing Antigone's body. Hearing this, Eurydice rushes back into the palace, followed by the messenger. Creon then enters, carrying Haemon's body, and wailing against his own tyranny, which caused his son's death. Just then the messenger emerges and tells him that the queen has committed suicide, brought to unbearable misery by her son's death. Creon weeps and raves wildly as Eurydice's body is brought forth from the palace. The messenger tells Creon that Eurydice called down curses on her husband just before she died, for the misery his pride had caused. Creon kneels and prays for death. His guards lead him back into the palace. The Chorus comes forth once more to tell how the proud are brought low by the gods.
Entrance of Tiresias to End -- Analysis
Antigone's ending reintroduces major themes from the trilogy in surprising new ways. While the courses of the previous plays were set almost from the beginning, here we have the king's sudden reversal, the sudden entrance of another character, his wife, and what seems to be a renunciation of the play's central device, politics. While pride has seemed to force these characters to match their politics to the will of the gods, Tiresias announces that even that kind of pride is misguided. Of course, Tiresias too is driven by politics, or rather a sort of anti-politics: while Tiresias came as the voice of doom in the first play, here he is a figure of conciliation, a sort of post-war peacekeeper. Again, we can note the self-dramatizing nature of the figure of Tiresias, who is always compelled to come on-stage by the prophecies he says he must speak, and also that of Creon, who enters into violent dialogue with Tiresias, maintaining his pose of absolute kingship, only to reverse himself when other actors take the stage.
The final long speech of the Chorus, where they ask Dionysus to protect Thebes, seems concerned with summarizing not only Antigone, but the trilogy as a whole. They do so not by providing an overarching moral picture, which their condemnations of pride try to do, but by finding the divine center of this tragic world, through a prayer to Dionysus. Dionysus, of Theban blood, is the god who governs this city and, by extension, these tragedies. The Chorus's seemingly innocent prayer is, in context, rife with irony. They seems to want protection and stability, but end by calling for what Dionysus, the god of wine, can provide: dance and drink.
Moreover, while these lines are being offered, the royal family falls again into tragedy. May we then take this as a refusal of divine intervention? Why, if Creon had already repented, would these last crimes? And how could such tragedies be presided over by a god of pleasure and vice? We certainly err in expecting a Christian closure, wherein we might see divine mercy distributed by an omnipotent god; still, there is something perverse to an ending which seems, far more than those of the previous plays, unnecessarily bloody. Certainly the figure of Eurydice does no more than to give us tragedy in surplus. Are we to take her death as a failure of the gods, or, as the Chorus does, as divine punishment? The latter seems misleading, for Dionysus, if we can hold him responsible, has laid all the city of Thebes to ruin, and there is now no one to assume authority: the royal family is dead, the guards and the Chorus wandering the stage, unguided.
Our only just conclusion, it seems, is that this is not a morality play, that tragedy is not the same thing as moral punishment. What we can appreciate is the beauty of this Sophoclean vision, no less transcendent than that of Tiresias, which gives us a view of a world of orderly wars and disorderly justice, where pride competes with pride under the omniscient gaze of the Chorus, where we are left with nothing but the spectacle of the stage and thoughts of Dionysian revelry."(www.sparknotes.com/guides/oedipus/)
|