It is this ref usal of burial on which this whole tragedy is hinged upon. Antigone is torn apart by her duty towards her blood brother, the Unwritten divine Laws and the city’s edicts. Ultimately, she decides to honour her brother based on the knowledge that it is what the Divine Laws prescribe. She seeks to question Creon’s edicts and this sets the ball rolling for their confrontation. She looks upon this task as a Glorious one and one that will lead her to martyrdom. Thus after this ‘knowledge’ nothing pleases her other than death. She sees death as her only exit from this painful and damned existence and portrays death as a kind of blessing, rather than a penalty. From here on it is almost as if she has a death wish.
It is thus seen that both the factors of moral imperatives and willful impulse drives her towards her own self destruction. She is forced by her social duty, her blood ties and her religious interpretation to bury her brother and seek ‘martyrdom’. She breaks off her relationship with her own sister Ismene over her refusal to help her and later on, as the play progresses and Creon is about to have both of them executed it is Antigone who corrects the mistake. Antigone in this way refuses her sister of even having a say in her Death, let alone her life. To Antigone the burial was a honourable religious service and she will let Ismene have no ‘glory’ in that, the glory is Antigone’s and hers alone. Antigone is convinced of her own righteousness in comprehending the divine laws and she is convinced of the supremacy of God’s laws over those of the state or that of a mere king. This is later on, proved true by Creon’s own destruction in the final act of Divine retribution.
Antigone seeks to glorify her act by calling it a ‘religious and sacred’ duty. But for completing this act she breaks off her relationship with her only sister, Ismene. Thus she puts the Dead over the living and is shown to break a family tie for another one. Though Antigone sacrifices herself for her dead brother the irony is that by doing so she is unable to gain anything because her brother Polynices is already dead.
Antigone reasons that the next world is more important than this one. We can also see she highly values her brother. She argues that if a husband dies, one can find another. When a child dies, one can have another. But with mother and father both dead, no other brothers can she have. This part is extremely ironic. The importance of attending to the next world prevails over, in her mind, the importance of her own life. However, no one can stop her from her own actions. She buries her brother’s corpse and faces the penalty, or perhaps, the prize: death.
On the discovery of Antigone’s crime, she offers no explanation except cursing Creon for being in the wrong. She calls his decree unholy and counter to the God’s laws. She completely neglects Creon’s authority as a king and is almost mocking him and his authority during their heated exchange of accusations. In this manner she seals her fate as Creon is extremely agitated towards her insolence and he too breaks the sacred ties of the family to pass the death sentence over both Antigone and Ismene as he deems both of them to be co-conspirators.
Her willful impulse towards self-destruction plays an immense role in her decisions. From the beginning of the play, she has expressively talks about her cursed life: “Our lives are pain!” “I have no longer to please the dead than please the living here: in the kingdom down below I’ll lie forever.” Such expression illustrates how Antigone views life. She seems hell-bent on being executed. Antigone also shows more of her morbid longing for death, saying that for one who has lived as she has, death is welcome. She has nothing to lose; she already lost her parents and two brothers. She clearly has in mind that she will be executed but she does not hesitate since life is a misery and nothing is valued in her life, not even her own life.
At the beginning of the play Creon starts of as an idealist but already some traits of dictatorship are visible, He expects complete and unquestioned loyalty by his subjects and is unwilling to take their points of view. This was evident when he refused to take into account on his son’s information about Theban feelings on the burial. He is shown to be tyrannical in his dealings with the sentry when he accuses them falsely of being bribed and is about to have them tortured and killed. He is even disrespectful towards the seer Tierisias and the God Zeus. He decrees that even if the Zeus’ eagles were to desanctify the Lords throne he would still not allow the burial of Polynices’ body. This sacrilege by him shows him to be the kind of person he is : - A Tyrant
In the end Creon is degraded to a corrupted father, husband and king and banishes himself. Why so abruptly does he degrade down to a destructed man? The answer is simple, Pride. His stubbornness and pride leads him to the pathway of destruction. Creon is mostly struggling with his moral imperatives. One of the main issued leading to Creon’s downfall is his refusal to acknowledge his own mistake. Creon is incapable to remedy his own mistake without first realizing that he has indeed made one. Creon’s moral imperative mostly motivates his actions. His belief in treating traitors harshly by not following the Unwritten Laws essentially acts as a pit for his downfall.
Creon is even unwilling to bend down to his own son. Creon is mastered by his anger when his son suggests that Theban’s are sympathetic towards Antigone, he is outraged and calls his son “a slave of a woman”. Creon is so outraged that he cannot seriously consider the substance of Haemons’s argument on its merits. His pride leads him to make accusations, before he considers the wise advice of others. Driven by his anger, he orders to bring Antigone so that she can die while Haemon watches.
Later on in the play, we can witness another incident that proves Creon being a tyrant. When the blind prophet, Teiresisas, advises Creon to release Antigone and bury Polynices corpse. He accuses the prophet as a filthy man, mad for money. Creon knows the seer would not be disloyal to him, but the fact that he will bend down towards someone annoys him and he cannot cope with it. Once again, his furious anger masters him and ends up exchanging insults with the seer. The prophet curses Creon and leaves in anger.
For Creon, his pride and authority leads him of in a destructive pathway. He even defies the Gods for his own pride and law he created. It is clear that his moral imperatives has driven him this far. Contrary to Antigone, his willful impulse towards self-destruction does not affect him greatly. He is contending with the life he is leading. Mostly his moral imperatives drove him to such extent. On the other hand, character of Antigone is driven by a bit of both factors. In the play she is constantly cursing her own life and portrays how miserable it is. Her willful impulse towards self-destruction eventually leads her towards death. Parts of her is pushed and motivated by her moral imperatives and a part of her mind is controlled by her willful impulse towards self-destruction. In the context of the play, one can argue her moral imperatives played a stronger role for her decision. Antigone, the protagonist of the play, pits her individual free will against the intractable forces of fate and against the irrational and unjust laws of a tyrannical man like Creon.
As the play evolves around the concept of divine laws, one can view this conflict as a pre-meditated order from the Gods. The pathway of Creon and Antigone was determined from the beginning, and any action would not have changed their destiny towards destruction.
