Summary Of Sohpocle's Greek Tragedy
Sohpocles’ Greek tragedy, Antigone, is a model for many literary works and presentations throughout history. The most critical aspect of Antigone is how her excessive pride and credence leads to his/her downfall. Other prolific works in which the main character’s strength leads to a dramatic consequences include F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, in which Jay Gatsby’s relentlessness to achieve his dream leads to his murder, it additionally manifests in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Romeo’s determination leads to his and Juliet’s suicides, and in Sophocles’ own Oedipus Rex, Oedipus’ excessive pride leads to the discovery that he killed his father, thus causing him to gouge his own eyes out. Similarly to these famous plays, Antigone’s extreme confidence in her own beliefs contributes to her eventual downfall.
The viewer watches the story of Antigone, the future queen of Thebes, who chooses to obey the law of the Gods over the law of her uncle, the tyrannical Creon. Creon forbids Angtigone’s brother, Polyneices, to be buried honorably. Without a formal burial, Polyneices will blindly wander through the afterlife. Thus, Antigone disobeys her uncle and buries her brother alone. Upon discovering Antigone’s deceit, Creon sentences her to death. But, because of her steadfast faith in the Gods, Antigone accepts her misconduct as well as the ultimate consequence. “I belong to Death”(213), she declares, and then proceeds to emphasize the dominance of higher powers in the world who motivated her to bury her brother, “That final Justice that rules the world below makes no such laws” (208).
Throughout this play, Antigone declares her loyalty to the higher powers. One may think of her credence as a strength, but as the play progresses, this extreme loyalty transforms into a disregard for all others. Even though Antigone believes that her “crime is holy”(192), she kills herself, which in turn, causes the suicides of Haemon, her future husband and cousin, and Eurydice, her aunt and future mother-in-law.
The Greek word for one’s tragic flaw is Hamartia. Antigone’s hamartia is her self-confidence in her own beliefs, a trait that becomes detrimental to herself as well as those around her. She comes to only trust herself, rather than others who are actually trying to help her. In the case of not only Antigone, but in the cases of Romeo, Jay Gatsby, and Oedipus, their greatest strengths also came to be their greatest weaknesses.
