While reading Sophocles’ play Antigone, the question that repeatedly popped into my head was, “Why would he title the play Antigone?” As a character, Antigone really irritates me. She appears as arrogant and self-righteous, putting down her sister and everyone else for having differing opinions. To be quite honest, her character reminds me of some of the religious extremists I have met. At any given moment, it was possible to find myself stuck in a one-sided conversation about how Jesus will save me. Even telling them that I am a devout Jew, which is completely untrue, but sometimes handy, failed to stop the nonsense. In short, Antigone is not my favorite character.
Why title the play after her? To me, it just seems like a whiny reminder that she was there at the beginning, but perhaps Sophocles is trying to convey his idea of tragedy. As stated in the introduction in the World Literature book, Antigone is considered to be the Sophoclean tragic hero. She represents the value of the individual as opposed to the state. The downfall of the individual could be the true tragedy through Sophocles’ eyes.
She basically has everything right, saying that Creon is wrong in forbidding Polynices’ body to be buried. Her beliefs of what is right come back to haunt Creon. Perhaps it is a simple nudge to question authority, to stick with true morality, but how can one know which morality is moral? To the Greeks, it was through looking to the gods, but, even still, there is a lack of true knowledge through personal interpretation.
Flaws, such as pride, can further complicate this personal interpretation. Creon’s major character flaw, without doubt, is his pride, which prevents him from seeing reality properly. These personal traits skew our perspectives of the world, set us aside from the Greek gods.
Maybe Antigone’s fanatic beliefs are just a way to represent the individual to the general public. Through using a concept that most would understand and relate to, the play holds more meaning. The strange part, though, is that Antigone displays a significant amount of pride as well. That seems to be the one notion that I cannot seem to wrap my head around. She stands up for what is right in an obnoxious manner and gets to hold the title of the play. In making her name the title, it is suggested that pride is something that everyone is susceptible to, even when paired with devout beliefs. All humans have flaws, or something to that effect (423).
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Sarah, I think you're trying to do something difficult but necessary here. You have a pretty strong reaction to a character, but you attempt to put that aside to come to a more thorough understanding of Antigone's importance to the moral message of the play. And I think you're right that part of the message becomes the difficulty of separating pride from devout beliefs. A thoughtful response to the play--thanks.
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