Sophocle's Sister In Antigone

The sibling relationship between Antigone and her sister plays as a central theme in the work of “Antigone” by Sophocles. One central theme portrayed by Antigone and her younger sister is loyalty. Antigone places the loyalty of her family and of the gods above the loyalty of obedience to the city. By placing the loyalty of her family and the gods first, antigone shows that loyalty of both are stronger that than the loyalty to the city or ruler. Ismene, Antigone’s sister, at first puts the obedience to the city and the ruler above the loyalty to family and the gods, but later the weighing of Ismene’s loyalty shifts. Analyzing the text as a whole, displays that Antigone knows from the start where her loyalty lies and her beliefs, but the text

While each sister believes they are being loyal, they are not and one sister is being less loyal than the other. Ismene did change her mind and decided to help Antigone, but Antigone rejects her. Antigone is already in a cell when Ismene begs Antigone for forgiveness and gets rejected. Ismene deciding she will bury their brother herself gets arrested by Creon. Both sisters now in trouble and are said to be put to death. Antigone in the views of some readers may be the less loyal sister for putting Ismene in the situation to go against the law and to go against her beliefs. In the eyes of other readers, Ismene is the less loyal sister as her loyalty in the beginning did not lie with her family. The different beliefs of the sisters have an affect on the central theme by both showing and not showing loyalty to one another. Antigone's loyalty became questionable as she let her sister get in trouble for something she didn’t want any part in. They showed loyalty by one deciding to finally help, and the other sister showed loyalty by having her sister arrested to not get in trouble, even though Ismene did get in

They had to share the crown of being a king and one brother did not like that. The loyalty of the brothers was gone when they killed each other by putting their family in the situation ruling in the death of Antigone. The new king also had loyalty issues as he killed his sons, Haemon, fiance causing Haemon to kill himself and then Creon's wife and Haemon's mother to kill herself leaving Creon lonely. The reason for Creon to be unloyal is because although Antigone went against the law, she was indeed his family and it just shows that Creon’s loyalty and beliefs are above the belief that he should be loyal to his family. Creon’s loyalty did not lie with his family and that is simply shown by the death of Antigone. Creon also did not think of the consequences that her death would have on his son leaving another impression by Sophocles that Creon is uncaring of