Selflessness In Antigone By Sophocles

As the great Martin Luther King, Jr. once said “Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.” Martin Luther King, Jr. and Sophocles both had the same idea of selfishness causing destruction Sophocles just wrote a play displaying that idea instead of saying it. In Antigone the famous play written by Sophocles, Antigone and her sister Ismene also Oedipus’s children decide to return to Thebes with the intention of helping their brothers, Eteocles and Polynices to avoid the fate that displays they will kill each other in a battle for the throne of Thebes. But upon her arrival in Thebes, Antigone learns that both of her brothers are dead. Eteocles has been given an …show more content…
Creon then uses Antigone his niece as an example of what happens to law breakers and sentences Antigone to life in prison but when Antigone gets locked away she hangs herself because she doesn't want to live a life locked away. Meanwhile, not realizing Antigone has taken her own life, the blind prophet Tiresias, Creon's son and Antigone’s fiancé Haemon, and the Chorus plead for Creon to release her. Creon finally gives in, but when Creon finally gives in it is too late and Creon's son finds out that Antigone her late fiance has died so he commits suicide which causes his mother to also commit suicide which leaves Creon to live a life of loneliness. In Sophocles’s play Antigone, Many characters that display this idea of selfishness create problems while also displaying the importance of human rights yet they can not be found more intensely than inside the characters of Creon and …show more content…
And within this opposition Sophocles really shows that selfishness causes problems . Sophocles does this by using Creon to show that if you are selfish bad things will happen. Creon shows this when haemon his son and Antigone's fiance approaches him about releasing antigone and he responds to Haemon with a stubborn response telling him that he will basically never release Antigone because he does not pay any respect to criminals. This response is very selfish because he does not listen to any other then himself which eventually leads to his downfall and his family all dying. Creon showing this idea is also seen when he is talking to Tiresias and Tiresias tells Creon that he should listen to the gods but he continues his selfish lifestyle and just disregards his