Antigone, by Sophocles

[beccaelizabeth]

This one left me :eyeroll: rather than, well, any of the appropriate-to-tragedy responses.
Three people dead of stupid and bad timing.
I've said before I don't like tragedy cause everyone gets dead of stupid.
I mean this sort, with the suicides.
I apparently can understand murder, even for godawful motives, better than I can sympathise with suicide.

It says on the back of the book that Antigone would rather die than not do her family honor.
Her brother is to be left unburied, on pain of death, and she decides to bury him anyway.
So, yeah, she risks death, proudly and without trying to hide it.
Her logic is that the laws about burial are god laws, and annoying gods is a worse idea than annoying kings, which the way the play works out is in fact wise.
Also she reckons she'll be spending more time with dead people than live ones, so again she knows who she'd rather dis.
Sound thinking.

The bit where she loses me is where she's all "Oh no I've been shut in this cave with food and water and a fiance and a sister still outside it. It is the end! Doooom, doomy doom doom, *dies now*."
:eyeroll:
Sorry.

Creon, the king that gives the order, spends most of the play being all stubborn and accusing anyone who disagrees with him of having taken bribes.
There's some stuff he says that reminded me quite strongly of US politics, in a weird sideways way. It's just that attitude of "I have decided! Decided means all done! No more changing mind!"
Except by the end he's all "Er, okay then, change mind now."
But it's too late.

There's interweaving strands of reasoning from everyone. It's one of the things that make it a strong play, even so far out of original cultural context. Creon reckons you can't have people picking and choosing which laws to obey, which I can understand, and also that people that tried to betray the city shouldn't get the same rewards as the people defending it, which is also understandable. It's just the "And all you guys trying to tell me different must be being paid!" aspect that's a bit daft.

His son was going to marry Antigone. When he first turned up I rather hated him. Instead of telling Creon he shouldn't kill Antigone he was all "I'm good and dutiful and do like you say." But then he turned out to be trying to persuade with logic and truth, so, okay. Creon obviously isn't the kind of guy you can defy to his face, Antigone already tried that, and that's his main reason for being so very annoyed, that she wasn't upset or scared about being caught. Also that she's a woman. Can't let a woman win.
Since by the end of the play Creon is king of the being very wrong people I can let that line of thought slide, cause how disproved does it look all told?
So, anyway, fiance guy tells Creon that the people are unanimously on Antigone's side, about obeying god laws. Creon says he's king and gets to decide and who cares about all them people. His son points out that he'll be king of a desert island at that rate.
At this point one remembers these plays were written in a democracy.

So then there's another prophet, and making the point about god laws and some really vivid imagery to go with it, and when Creon accuses the prophet of a profit motive he gets really annoyed and tells him his son is going to die.

So when Creon changes his mind and goes to let Antigone out he finds she's killed herself, then his son tries to kill him and then kills himself, and then by the time he gets home with the body his wife has killed herself too.
So, Creon very miserable and very wrong, changing mind is the course of wisdom, don't ignore god laws, dead bodies lying around is icky, and don't ignore all everyone telling you things.
As morals go, fair enough.

But... if she had waited, believed she had friends, had a bit of hope, not been all waily waily doom on the way to the cave, then that's three suicides wouldn't have happened.

So I end up being all :eyeroll: at it, because there's nothing inevitable, destined, or fated, about either hanging or stabbing yourself. It's just rather stupid.


So, verdict: Well written, themey, imagery, well argued, lots of interesting characters, plenty of feminism stuff to get into, but... dead of stupid is never going to be something that really moves me.

Comments

[louiex.livejournal.com]

'When in doubt, stab it out!' seems to be the theme of most tragedies :D But yeah, there was an unnecessary sort of suicides all around~ But, again with cursed families, Antigone was one of Oedpius's daughters with his mother Jocasta, so you know from in front she won't get a happy ending.