Examples Of Soothes And Intimidates Laws In Antigone

Antigone has a dilemma. She must decide who she will side with when her uncle, Creon, chooses to disgrace her brother by enacting a law forbidding his burial. The city of Thebes faced a time of crises when two brothers fought for the ownership of the kingdom. One brother greedily breached an agreement to share the crown and instead took the power for himself; the deceived other launched a rebellion. Both brothers died in this conflict and Creon was left with the task of reconstructing the city. In order to avoid a second rebellion and successfully rebuild the city, Creon decided he would make a martyr of the first while making an example of the second by denying burial and leaving his sprit to drift aimlessly. Creon both soothes and intimidates

But, Antigone is also wrong and takes an incorrect approach by being so immovable herself and in her swiftness of action. Her first thought of disobedience was to perform the act that would result in her death. She decided that she would have to die to get her point across- self-martyrdom. Her process was not thought out and she jumped to the extreme. Antigone is too willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for what she believes in. There is no compromise in their arguments; instead they both look to disprove the other’s arguments. She will die for her stance; she executed her crime knowing the punishment. Creon labels her as immovable when he is also immovable. Creon also characterizes her as stubborn when he is

In order for Antigone to be at ease she must know that her brother is at peace. In Creon’s position he has the city and the law to uphold, but it is his family that suffers in order for him to succeed in his profession. The guards only want to do their jobs, and they will not question what is asked of them or the correctness of laws. They want to seek the best interest of themselves and their families. People care about things and when they care, the things that they stand for find faults and we cannot live by what we love. It is tragic how humans try to be open to the world and trust other human beings and their environments but our values and inspirations are constantly challenged when good human beings try to live by what they care about. This is due to conflicting evils. Human goodness is fragile. We are vulnerable to disaster, because of the limits that we will reach in order to fit our models of what is good and just as well as what we care