Much like in Oedipus Rex, shows the relationship between knowledge and power in Antigone shows us that we cannot have it all, because we are just human. Ever since the former King of Thebes, Oedipus, lost everything in the pursuit of knowledge, his two sons killed each other and the new king, Creon, his uncle/brother-in-law, decided to only give an honor one of them with a burial and subsequently bans anyone from honoring the other. One of Oedipus’s surviving daughters, Antigone, takes issue with that, and defies Creon's order by burying her brother. When Creon learns that someone defied his order, much like Oedipus’s original pursuit, he sets out to find the criminal. Antigone is caught, imprisoned and sentenced to death, but says to Creon before,“Your edict, king, was strong, but all your strength is weakness itself against the immortal;
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Creon accuses Teiresias of deception, but then hastily takes his advice by giving Oedipus’s son a proper burial and then going to release Antigone; however, it is too late for Antigone. She hung herself in jail and the dominos started to fall-- Haimon kills himself out of grief, before Creon’s eyes, then his wife commits suicide and curses Creon for killing her sons. This leaves Creon, just like Oedipus, with nothing, he became a “walking dead man”(238). Creon thought that he knew everything, that he had supreme power in the city. So in a very egocentric way, he defied the gods, and even though he rushed to change the errors in his ways, he was too late-- he had already lost everything. Creon learnt that “There is no happiness where there is no wisdom; no wisdom but in submission to the gods”(245). The relationship of knowledge and power in this book shows us that even a powerful king cannot-- and should not --control certain things, that we should not strive for complete control of something because we’re only just
Creon accuses Teiresias of deception, but then hastily takes his advice by giving Oedipus’s son a proper burial and then going to release Antigone; however, it is too late for Antigone. She hung herself in jail and the dominos started to fall-- Haimon kills himself out of grief, before Creon’s eyes, then his wife commits suicide and curses Creon for killing her sons. This leaves Creon, just like Oedipus, with nothing, he became a “walking dead man”(238). Creon thought that he knew everything, that he had supreme power in the city. So in a very egocentric way, he defied the gods, and even though he rushed to change the errors in his ways, he was too late-- he had already lost everything. Creon learnt that “There is no happiness where there is no wisdom; no wisdom but in submission to the gods”(245). The relationship of knowledge and power in this book shows us that even a powerful king cannot-- and should not --control certain things, that we should not strive for complete control of something because we’re only just