Antigone Essay, Research Paper
ANTIGONE In the story of Antigone, two very headstrong people’s beliefs are
matched up against each other. Creon, the king, made it law that no traitor to
the Kingdom shall have a proper burial, instead they will be left laying on the
ground to rot and to be eaten by the animals. This was the case of Antigone’s
brother, Polyneices. Antigone’s love for her brother was so great that she went
against the law, eventhough she knew Creon’s punishment for breaking the law
was public stoning, which ultimately resulted in death. Creon, who had an equal
amount of determination, refused to back down from his law for his own
reasons even after Antigone ignored it. He could not submit himself to the will
of a woman. At that time, women were looked at as being in the same class as
slaves. If he did, it would have showed weakness in him and the people would
have overthrown him for letting a woman have that effect on him. So instead
of the public stoning, Creon sentenced Antigone to die in a cave where she
could starve to death. Instead of dying a slow miserable death, she committed
suicide by hanging herself. As it turns out, this set off a string of events for the
king that he could have never saw coming. The first of the tragic events that
would unfold was the death of his son. Haemon was Creon and Eurydice’s son
and was next in line to the throne with Antigone as his wife. Creon’s son was
set to be married to Antigone, but after Creon sentenced her to death, Haemon
turned on his father. He was outraged that Creon had taken away his future
wife, in which he was very much in love with. He was so outraged, that he
would even break the unique and special bond between father and son.
Haemon felt incomplete without Antigone and could not stand being apart from
her. He found away to solve his problem and get revenge on his father at the
same time. He had taken his own life and at the same time killed the future of
the family’s place in the throne. Creon was crushed at what his son did,
especially hearing it from someone else. After hearing of Haemon’s death,
Eurydice was completely devastated and felt some what violated. She felt
Creon was responsible for the death of not only Haemon, but for Megareus
who was killed some years before. Haemon was the only son left for Eurydice
and the last only one left to inherit the throne. Eurydice’s life had gone from
having a picture book ending to becoming a true, old fashioned tragedy. Her
last remaining son was a short time away from marrying a beautiful young
woman and starting their lives together, its every mothers wish for their son.
First her son’s fiancee dies by suicide and then her son is torn from her life in
an instant. It was too much to happen to one person in such a short amount of
time. Not too many people can handle events like that, including Eurydice. She
also found the same solution as her son. She did not want to live with such
great sadness and could not live with Creon anymore. After all he had been
responsible for the two deaths that greatly affected her life. Things could not
possibly be worse for Creon, his son and his wife are dead, and there’s no one
to inherit the throne in his family. He knows that he was the cause of all this
misery that surrounds him. He was now paying the price for such an unfair
judgment against Antigone. If he had a second chance to do things over, he
surely would have done things much differently. He realized that his ruling was
not worth all the pain, guilt, and suffering he caused. It would not have been so
bad if they had not committed suicide, but Haemon killed himself holding
Antigone, his love, and his mother killed herself violently with a sword. Creon’s
head fills with suicidal thoughts and begins to break down. In the end, he does
almost nothing but pray for death. Although the story ends with him leaving
with these types of thoughts, one can only imagine he met the same fate as his
son and wife. In conclusion, it is obvious to see the repercussions of Creon’s
faithfulness to his beliefs. He had basically lost everything, his wife and son
were gone, he would not be able to maintain his position as king, and he had
lost all self control. The people would have overthrown him if he continued.
This was all due to the fact that he made one really wrong ruling. Too much
power and control cause an increase in arrogance and can cause some people
to make totally irrational thoughts. If Creon had continued to rule, these events
hopefully would have taught him to consider what happens to the people with
such harsh laws. Creon could have easily avoided all this if he had actually
thought about what might happen if one of the law breakers was some one in
his own family.