Civil Disobedience in Antigone: How It Was Portrayed
Antigone’s civil disobedience can be considered one of the play’s central themes, considering the Greek classic revolves around our main heroine’s defiance of civil laws. How and why would Antigone go against the governing body of her homeland? Why would she do such a thing despite the consequences of death? To answer these, we must go back to the play and carefully watch as the story unfolds.
Antigone
After the war that killed Polyneices and Eteocles, Creon rose to power and took over the throne. His first decree? to bury Eteocles and forbid the burial of Polyneices, leaving the body to rot on the surface. This move upsets the majority of the people, for it goes against the divine law.
Antigone, Polyneices’ sister, is most upset by this and decides to let her frustration out on her sister, Ismene. Antigone plans to bury their brother despite Creon’s wishes and asks her sister for help, but Antigone decides to bury their brother alone upon seeing Ismene’s reluctance.
Antigone ventures off into the grounds and buries her brother; in doing so is caught by two palace guards who immediately bring her to King Creon. The King of Thebes is enraged by Antigone’s sheer defiance and so has her arrested and entombed, awaiting her execution. Haemon, Antigone’s fiancé, and Creon’s son beg his father to let Antigone go, but Creon refuses, forcing his son to take matters into his own hands.
Haemon marches off to Antigone’s prison, intending to free his lover, only to arrive at her corpse, hung from the ceiling. In grief, Haemon kills himself and joins Antigone in the afterlife.
Tiresias, the blind prophet, visits Creon and warns him of angering the gods. He cautions the King of his ill fate if he continues to act brazenly in the name of justice and extreme hubris. He was placing himself on par with the gods and putting his selfish intentions to lead the people of Thebes.
The sinful actions of allowing the burial of a well and alive woman and refusing the tomb of the dead man will incur their wrath and bring pollution to Thebes, both figuratively and literally.
Creon, in fear, rushes to Antigone’s tomb to free her, but to his dismay, Antigone and his son have taken their lives. Distraught, he brings Haemon’s body back to the palace, where his wife, Eurydice, catches wind of her son’s death and takes her own life in misery.
Now left with nothing but his throne, Creon laments the mistakes he’s made and lives the rest of his life in grief from the fate his hubris had bestowed upon him. To him, the civil disobedience of Antigone jump-started the tragedy of his life.
Examples of Civil Disobedience in Antigone
The Sophoclean play contended for its controversial topic of justice. The subject of divinity vs. civility heralds a new era as it brings into light the disagreement of both opposing beliefs. Civil disobedience, defined as the refusal to comply with specific laws, is a staple in the Greek classic.
Antigone’s defiance could be dubbed as such while she opposes those in power. Through oration, Antigone captures her spectators and employs her strong passion as they empathize with our heroine. Through this, she garners the strength to push through with her beliefs.
Polyneices’ Defiance
The first civil disobedience in the play is not mentioned but alluded to as the “Seven Against Thebes.” Polyneices, dubbed as a traitor for a reason, was banished by his brother Eteocles, never to return to Thebes. But, he disobeys this command and instead brings armies that cause a war. Polyneices’ disobedience to his brother’s command brings about the death of both of them, allowing Creon, their uncle, to take over.
The difference between Polyneices’ civil disobedience and Antigone is their cause; Polyneices’ defiance roots from his excessive greed and hubris while Antigone’s lies in love and devotion, but ironically, both meet their end from such.
Creon’s Deviance
Creon, the lawmaker of the land, has disobeyed civil laws as well. How? Allow me to explain. Before Creon’s rule, the people of Thebes had a long-standing history of tradition deeply rooted in their form of religion. They follow certain customs embedded into them from a long time ago, one of which is the ritual to bury the dead.
They believe that for one to pass peacefully into the land of Hades, one must be buried in either the soils of the earth or entombed in caves. In his attempt to punish a traitor, Creon goes against these laws, sowing confusion and turmoil in his people as he ascends to power. A person cannot merely erase centuries of tradition, and thus, he deviated from the unwritten laws of his land, creating discourse and doubt.
His defiance of divine law is considered civil disobedience in his land, for the laws of the gods, have been the sole guide for the people of Thebes for a long time. The unwritten law is still a law within the land; thus, his defiance of such can be considered civil disobedience.
Antigone’s Disobedience
Antigone and civil disobedience go hand in hand as she defies Creon’s law to fight for her brother’s right to a proper burial. She bravely marches up to face the consequences of her actions, unafraid of death, as she is caught burying the body of her deceased sibling. Head held high; she meets Creon, who fumes at her insubordination as she is locked away in a tomb; a punishment Antigone feels is worse than death.
To be entombed alive is sacrilegious for Antigone, for she strongly believes in the Divine law that states only in the end should one be buried. She, who was buried alive, eagerly awaits her death and disobeys Creon’s command to await her execution as she brazenly takes her own life.
Antigone strongly believes that the state laws should not override god’s rules, and therefore is unafraid of the consequences of her actions. She had gone through such grief that the thought of death had little to no impact on her, going as far as to await joining her deceased family in the afterlife eagerly. But these aren’t just acts of civil disobedience in Antigone.
The most pressing and apparent defiance is her disobedience against Creon’s law, to which she goes against, stating divine law, refusing to back down from the King’s orders. Refused, Antigone buries her brother anyway. Another instance of Antigone’s stubborn defiance can also be seen in one of the choruses.
Antigone Defies Her Fate
The chorus heralds Antigone for her courage in trying to take reigns of her fate, to defy her family’s curse, but it was all for naught, for she did die in the end. One could also surmise that she did change her fate, for she did not die a tragic death, but death by her hands with both her morality and pride intact.
In death, the people of Thebes herald the heroine as a martyr who goes against a tyrannical ruler and fights for their freedom. The people believed that Antigone had laid out her life, combating the unjust rules of their tyrant and quelled the inner turmoil they all faced; divine vs. civil law.
Conclusion:
Now that we’ve talked about civil disobedience, its meaning, and the key characters that committed such acts, let’s go over the key points to this article:
- Civil disobedience is defined as the refusal to comply with specific laws.
- The Sophoclean play, controversial, is contended for its motif in the rivalry of two main sects that govern the people; religion and government.
- Antigone defies the government by burying her brother despite mortal laws, showcasing civil disobedience.
- Polyneices disobeys Eteocles’ command and starts a war in Thebes, killing them both in the process.
- Creon disobeys tradition and customs, thus sowing discourse and doubt within his people, showcasing disobedience against the gods and disobedience against tradition.
- The land of Thebes is deeply rooted in the divine laws that command the populace, giving their version of morality and straight path that Creon deterred from, disobeying the unwritten law.
- Antigone strongly believes that the state laws should not override god’s law, and so her defiance against Creon is shown right from the start.
- In opposition, Creon believes his rule is absolute, and anyone who opposes such should be punished by death.
Antigone’s defiance is rooted in the Theban culture; she strongly believes in the divine law and holds no regard to the consequences of her actions in the name of her beliefs.
In conclusion, civil disobedience has many shapes and forms, from opposing unwritten laws that govern the land to the opposition of the legislative commands; one cannot escape the defiance of one or the other in the Greek classic. Defying civil laws would mean upholding the divine ones and vice versa in the Sophoclean play Antigone.
This is shown in the altercation between Creon and Antigone, who are on both ends of opposing laws. Both unwavering in their beliefs to uphold the morality of their conflicting moral compasses, they, ironically, hold the same fate of tragedy.
