The Consequences of Antigones Choice, Policy, or Course of Action - Essay Example

Antigone reflects a society that is oppressed by the government in Greek. The conflict between state power and individuals oppresses the Greek audiences just like it oppresses modern society. Her actions to defend society threaten the status of the use, thus invoking divine law. However, the faith of her individual conscience’ divining power makes her position very implicit. Out of devotion, she sacrifices her own life beyond the principles of human law. Antigone’s actions have profound effects because of her gender as a woman (Sophocles 12). Her rebellion becomes much more threatening because it interferes with hierarchy and gender roles. Antigone overturns one of her culture’s fundamental roles by not being passive.

When she is faced with injustices, Antigone progressively and aggressively reacts to such injustices (Anonymous 3). Antigone purely plunges on her firm convictions and self-belief about what is right and wrong. Ultimately, she has to fight for what is right. When Polyneices die, Antigone does not ask for permission to bury him from Creon but instead, she rashly takes matters into her hands alone. This is a result of the anger she gets into for losing her only true love. Later on in the play, Antigone decides to commit suicide by killing herself in a cave instead of satisfying the needs of Creon. If Antigone was not that imprudently hasty, Creon would have spared her life, because he was on his way to release her and have Polyneices accorded a proper burial.

When Antigone is sentenced to death, everyone in Thebes sympathizes with her. Her course of action, therefore, makes her a tragic hero.

Relationship between Socrates’ Ideas found in the "Crito" that can be applied to Antigone’s Choices
Like Antigone, he says that the narrative of his life is over and that is why he had no reason to escape. In her own terms, Antigone’s martyrdom was much worth it, while at greater length; the martyrdom of Socrates was not at all worth it. Their terms and beliefs are depicted in Crito of Plato and the Antigone of Sophocles respectively.

Antigone’s position is presented as vindicated by events. Antigone’s choice of confronting death by honoring the corpse of her brother leaves her in a dilemma, just like that of Agamemnon at Aulis, since they both have to make alternative choices that are wrong. On page 74, she says “unscrupulously doing what is relevant”, (Sophocles 7) meaning that she believes she does not do any wrong by breaking Creon’s edict in order to honor her brother. Contrary, she believes what she does is what Bernard Williams calls a practical necessity (Allen 561). The difference between Antigone’s tragedy and Agamemnon’s tragedy is that the tragedy of Agamemnon is his, but not of Cassandra, while Antigone’s tragedy is not hers but Creon's.

Crito’s intention is to fully defend Socrates’ martyrdom choice (Allen 559). The Platonism that Socrates argues about in Plato’s Crito contains resources that refute the arguments against accepting his martyrdom. Socrates Crito 49c states that it is wrong to revenge an injustice with injustice. Antigone's choice to bury his brother against Creoles' wishes was a wrong choice since it was like revenge on the king though, to her, it was not wrong. The other Crito, 59b, also adds that breaking the law is similar to destroying the state, something that Antigone does not believe in. According to Socrato, (Bernard 51), it is not possible to respect the opinions of all people and that could have made Antigone not respect Creole. When Socrato asks Crito about this, Crito agrees with it in their dialogue.

Choices made by Antigone
Though Antigone made independent choices according to what she thought was right, I think she was free to do so as long as she was not violating any human right. However, Creole tried to make her life miserable simply because she was a woman. Her course of action that led to her death was unfortunate and a very bad decision. Despite losing her life, she caused his groom to be to also kill himself when he learned about Antigone’s death.