Polynices

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” said historian Lord Acton. In Sophocles’ Antigone, Oedipus the King of Thebes has newly departed after disgracing his people, and his successors to the throne Polynices and Eteocles have died in battle, leaving his brother Creon to inherit his throne. From the beginning, Creon uses his newfound power to impose excessive punishments against not only the innocent people of Thebes, but also his family. As a result, the people of…

Antigone was caught for trying to bury her brother Polynices. The quote is very important to the overall story of Antigone because it revolves around the theme of family verse family and also the theme of right verse wrong. Creon is Antigone’s uncle but they don’t necessarily see eye to eye with each other, which is why she calls Creon a tyrant. Other distributes occur between family members throughout the play. An example being the brothers Polynices and Eteocles fight and eventually killing…

burial rites as an insult to human dignity.” They are talking about how important burials were, to the Greek culture. One example in the play Antigone was when Polynices and Eteocles went into war and both of them died. Their uncle Creon decided to give Eteocles a warriors burial whereas Polynices, he left to rot. He stated that Polynices…

In ancient Greece, the role of women in society was to stay at home and produce children. Women were not educated, and they had no place in the theater, even as audience members. However, women were often portrayed in theater, and prominent characters were often women. These women did things atypical of what a traditional greek woman would do. Lysistrata brought an end to the Peloponnesian War, Medea enacted a cunning revenge, and Antigone valiantly ensured her brother received a proper burial.…

conspiracy to destabilize Creon’s authority. By asserting that the King “has no right to keep me from my own”, Antigone shows extraordinary disrespect to the authority (Sophocles). This sets a dangerous precedent especially considering the fact that Polynices intended to harm the citizens of Thebes when he returned from exile. Despite the fact that Antigone’s brave decision is admirable, it is wrong for her to place her interests above the greater good of the entire city’s population. The King…

After his banishment from Thebes, Oedipus’ sons fought over the throne. In this situation, their pride was expressed through their point of view that the throne was rightfully theirs and not the other brother’s. Polynices attempted to approach Oedipus, but Oedipus was not having any of it. He knew the brothers were selfish and prideful along with how they were fighting for the throne back in Thebes, so he cursed them himself to kill each other. From there, it seems…

She does not realize that she has given her freedom to the gods, and she believes that she is the one making the decisions in her life. In all reality, the gods are “possessing" Antigone. Antigone shows this when she goes against Kreon to give Polynices burial rights. As much as this action may seem to be free thinking and something that she is passionate about, it was highly pressured and completely influenced by the expectations set by the gods. The gods have so deeply engrained it into…

the way in which the generational curses have impacted Antigone’s life. She does, however, attempt to shed the weight of sin that burdens her in her final days of her life as she chooses to ignore Creon’s edict, which states that “no one honor [Polynices] with a grave and none shall mourn him” (A 223). Her act of defiance against the man-made laws in respect to the divine laws of the gods is her chosen method of ridding herself of…

One of the most interesting dilemmas in the play is what actually led Antigone to bury her brother, Polynices, even though Creon’s edict labeled it as an illegal act, punishable by death. It is true that religious beliefs and cultural ethos played their parts in her motivations, but those were only the treetops. The layers underneath…

In life, “we [can] do everything right, act on the best information available, and with the best of intentions, yet still commit unspeakable horrors” (“The Tragic Hero in Greek Drama”). Aristotle created a definition of a tragic hero based on Sophocles’ characters in the tragedies Antigone and Oedipus the King. His definition, known as the Aristotelian tragic hero, has specific requirements the character must possess. Creon is the character that best exemplifies Aristotle’s tragic hero because…