Theme Of Free Will In Antigone

People who believe in fate typically do not want to accept the responsibility they have for their own actions. A story about a woman who follows her family’s fate by her own free will. In Sophocles’ Antigone, the theme of free-will versus fate is emplified by the family curse and Antigone’s goal in the play is to bury her brother, Polynices. However, it is forbidden to do so and the punishment for breaking that rule is death. Antigone was born into a family who appears to be “destined” to fail and to wither. Antigone seems to follow her ancestor’s ways of acting out and being a rule breaker. The Chorus says, “No generation frees another, some god strikes them down, there is no deliverance.” (Act 2, Scene 2, 472). In the era that this play was written, fate was heavily influenced by higher powers or ancestors. In Antigone’s case, Oedipus is the cause of the family curse that is a factor in Antigone’s fate. Antigone uses her free will to go against Creon’s

Creon did not want to be told how to use his power. Creon tells his son, Haemon, “Fool, adolescent fool! Taken in by a woman!” (Act 3, Scene 3, 605) When Creon tells his son this, he feels powerful that he did not get tricked into letting someone else tell him what to do. However, this choice by Creon led to the downfall of his family and ultimately himself. In conclusion, in Sophocles’ Antigone, the theme of free-will versus fate is emplified by the family curse and Antigone’s goal in the play is to bury her brother, Polynices. However, it is forbidden to do so and the punishment for breaking that rule is death. The fate of Antigone because of her family’s curse is one of the causes of her downfall. Another cause of her downfall was her free-will of going against Creon’s rule. The final part discusses Creon’s free-will of having power and using it poorly, this causes the downfall of his