Antigone or the tragic choice :
Gods’ laws / human laws
8888The first image that comes in mind thinking about this first part of Sophocles’ Antigone is this old torture : quartering. The character of Antigone seems to be the victim of the confrontation of two logics completely different, both legitimate but highly contradictory. Creon on the one hand has to lead the country, has to set the law, to lead the humans; Antigone on the other hand has to accomplish her duty as a sister and as a member of her noble family under the judgment of the Gods. Focusing more on Antigone, one can see two major traits that explain her behavior : she is noble and she is part of a doomed lineage. From these two observations and considering the fatal situation she has to endure, what kind of judgment can we make about Antigone’s actions?
8888She is “noble both in [her] nature and [her] birth”(l.44). This sentence is a key to understand Antigone. Being and feeling noble, it gives her a sense of natural superiority and a mission to accomplish, a mission above the “base” (l.45), a mission than human beings cannot understand. She has to make a choice between becoming a criminal regarding the human definition of it (she breaks the rules of her uncle, leader of the men); or breaking the religious and traditional rule (she has to bury her beloved brother, it is her duty as a sister). This impossible choice defines Antigone’s character : she is not only noble by birth, she is noble by nature, she is fully noble. And as nature cannot be commended, her choice is even reduced to a single possibility : she obeys to Gods’ laws, to her ancestors’ laws not to human laws. She is the daughter of a king, the sister of a king, the niece of a king, she is above human laws, she is in direct connection with the members of her “kind” and through them the Gods. Her vocabulary shows this particular point : she uses a vocabulary of “honor”(l.89), of feelings, of religion. She is not part of a rational world, she seems already part of a divine world.
8888What is more, Antigone is two times doomed. First by her birth : she is Oedipus’ daughter, part of the Labdacids and as a Labdacid she has interiorized her fatal destiny (that her sister summarizes briefly from line 55 to line 70). But she is also doomed by her nature : she is strong, she has an immutable determination (she is noble “by nature”). However, she is not a man, she is a woman; and here is the second malediction for Antigone. She is a woman in a world where only men can be brave. Her sister tries to remind her of her place in society [“ you ought to realize we are only women/not meant in nature to fight against men” l. 70-71]. A sense of fatality emerges from these two “maledictions” : she cannot and does not want to avoid her destiny.
8888These two elements (her nobility and her inevitable fatal destiny) are two keys to understand her behavior and her rationalitY : she is above the human laws and she knows that she has to die. For her, the only enviable place is the kingdom of Hades : every-thing she loved is now gone, her kind is definitely extinguished, she belongs to a godly world or a world of shadows. She is alone in her honor.
____What kind of judgment can we make about her actions ? She is torn apart between the world of death to which she already belongs, and human rules she cannot accept because of her destiny/her mission and her noble status. Rationality for her is not rationality for the other human beings. Men and Creon are part of a logic of government and they cannot allow any disobedience for the State’s sake. She is part of another sphere, with her own rationality, her own values that seem irrational to the human sphere. Is she a criminal ? Whatever decision she makes she will be a criminal. But between being a criminal in regards to the human laws, and being a criminal in regards to her ancestors and to her Gods, her choice is to follow the Gods’ laws. Her choice is completely rational since she does not belong to the human world anymore. She knows that she has to meet her destiny and she does it bravely.
