Pride in Oedipus and Antigone - Essay Example

Pride in Oedipus and Antigone A great number of Greek tragedies are founded upon the concept of excessive pride. Although pride in itself can be seen as a positive attribute, when it manifests itself in terms of arrogance or defiance of fate and the gods, this characteristic rapidly becomes a fatal flaw leading to the downfall of even the greatest heroes. Aristotle said “the tragic hero falls into bad fortune because of some flaw in his character of the kind found in men of high reputation and good fortune such as Oedipus.” This is what is meant by the fatal flaw, which can be overlooked or overcome in men of normal stature, but in those who are of high station, this type of flaw can be the cause of their demise. However, the process by which it does this is not always made clear. In the character of Oedipus, for example, pride drives him, but stubbornness proves to be his downfall as he steadfastly refuses to listen to council regarding this pursuit. Following in his footsteps, his daughter, Antigone, expresses her own stubborn inability to listen to council which leads to her death as well. In this essay I will argue how both Oedipus from Oedipus the King by Sophocles and the character’s daughter Antigone from Antigone by Jean Anouilh are each protagonists who cannot control their own stubborn natures, eventually bringing forth their own downfalls. Early in the Oedipus the King, Oedipus unknowingly sets himself up for failure by pledging that he will avenge the old king as if he were his sire. “And I pray / whoever the man is who did this crime, / one unknown person acting on his own / or with companions, the worst of agonies / will wear out his wretched life. I pray, too, / that, if he should become a honoured guest / in my own home and with my knowledge, I may suffer all those things I’ve just called down / upon the killers” (Sophocles, 284-292). Although his motivation seems to be a bit divided between doing what’s right for the city and acting in the interest of self-preservation, he is utterly sincere in his conviction that the killer should suffer the worst possible fate if he refuses to acknowledge his guilt immediately. His commitment to this conviction is shown in his dealings with Tiresias. He tells Creon that he’s already sent for the prophet twice with no response and when the prophet does appear, he does nothing at first but beg to be allowed to return back home. Oedipus’ increasing insistence that Tiresias speak of what he knows are met with dire hints that the news is not good for Oedipus in particular – “You must bear your burden / to the very end” (Sophocles, 380-81), “You are all ignorant. I will not reveal / the troubling things inside me, which I can call / your grief as well” (Sophocles, 391-93) – yet Oedipus only responds to this with anger and insults, which drag further truths out of the prophet regarding the nature of Oedipus’ crimes in the form of riddles that Oedipus will not understand until he is already destroyed. “Tiresias is accusing him of horrible deeds, of being a murderer, of not knowing the truth about his own past. This hits a sore spot, as Oedipus has been in that position before, and it led him to leave his home in Corinth. They clash. Oedipus’ emotions turn on a dime, and we see his pride and his anger erupt” (Esch, 2002). Antigone, on the other hand, enters the scene already in a rage after learning that the new king, Creon, has forbidden to allow one of her brothers to be buried. She decides to go against the king’s orders, arguing that burying the dead is the right thing to do. “Antigone, driven by family duty and love, cannot but fight against Creon’s decision.” (Lathan, 2002). Her pride in family makes it impossible for her to drop the issue and her stubborn determination to abide by what she feels is right makes it impossible for her to approach the issue in any way other than head-on. It is clear she’s outraged that the king would tell her what to do when she is talking to her sister at the very beginning of the play: “That’s what people say the noble Creon / has announced to you and me – I mean to me” (Anouilh, 472-75). The repetition of “I mean to me” indicates she cannot believe someone else would tell her what to do, showing excessive pride in her own judgment and hinting at her inability to listen to the council of others. As her sister reminds her, women do not have any power in their culture, but Antigone stubbornly refuses to listen. Instead, she brazenly goes out to give her brother the last rites necessary for his spirit to find its way to the next world in daylight, making it inevitable that the guards placed out there would catch her. In the end, it doesn’t matter if her ideas were founded on trying to please the gods; she is put to death for her stubborn insistence on doing what she has determined is right regardless of what her uncle has decided. Additionally, her mind is so made up regarding what she must do that she even removes the possibility that the king might release her and hangs herself before allowing him to have the satisfaction of decreeing her fate. This behavior would have shocked many of the French audiences at the time as it was written during the grip of the Second World War when women also didn’t hold any power or authority. Like Antigone, Oedipus’ personality clearly reflects a stubborn willingness to force things to go his way throughout his play, but his actions occur without prior knowledge of his own involvement in the outcome. The people of Oedipus’ day placed great emphasis on the predictions of the oracles, so when he heard the prediction that he was to kill his father and marry his mother, Oedipus was determined to avoid fate and left his homeland in Corinth for the further realm of Thebes. When he solved the riddle of the Sphinx there, his pride rose to a new level since he then becomes the king of Thebes and marries Jocosta, the widowed queen of Thebes, never thinking twice about the people he killed in battle on his journey. He knows he has outwitted fate because the two have several children together and the kingdom prospers. These early victories only serve to convince him of his own might and power, making it more difficult for him to recognize errors or to take council from other mere mortals. He stubbornly sets his mind on capturing the guilty person without having any clue that he might be the one. When the blind prophet Teresias indicates that Oedipus was the murderer of King Laius, Oedipus’ pride prevents him from believing it. However, his earlier promises and his stubborn determination to do what he says he will do force him to continue solving the riddles of his own parentage, a quest that will only end in his discovery of a prophecy fulfilled and the destruction of an otherwise good and just king. It is easy to see the irony that if Oedipus had not been so determined to escape and prevent the prophecy, he would have not fulfilled it by accident. In response to his sudden realization, Oedipus stabbed out his eyes and walked away from Thebes forever. “Oedipus is extraordinarily stubborn, resisting any pleas for moderation or limits on his own desires for life on his terms” (Johnston, 2000). We can see the same emotions driving Antigone to the consequences of her actions as she fights for her brother’s final dignity despite, or perhaps encouraged by, her prior knowledge of the inevitable outcome. She does not obey the law of King Creon that no one can bury Polynicis’ body and covers her brother with dirt even though she knows the decreed punishment for such deeds. She justifies her action on a strong religious belief, but this act can’t be seen as Antigone’s first act of rebellion. We know from the nurse that Antigone is stubborn, self willed and proud. Even though she never behaved like the other girls, the nurse immediately assumes Antigone has taken another lover as the only culturally valid explanation for why she was out. Antigone lies about her actions, demonstrating how she is no stranger to deceit. She knows her plan can be stopped and is too stubborn to allow anyone to interfere. In this respect, she seems to be an extension of her father, Oedipus. This is illustrated when the chorus observes “It’s clear enough / the spirit in this girl is passionate— / her father was the same. She has no sense / of compromise in times of trouble” (Anouilh, 510-12) when Antigone is being questioned after being caught red-handed. In acting on her beliefs, she openly defied Creon and proudly admits that she is a traitor when she is caught: “I did not think / anything which you proclaimed strong enough / to let a mortal override the gods” (Anouilh, 510-12) she says spitefully to the king in response to why she disobeyed his law. She is so sure she is right in what she’s doing that she risks administering the last rites during the light of day. Creon finally tells her that her father has polluted her with stubbornness and pride, but Antigone responds that she would rather die than lead a fake life. It is this stubbornness in following her own code of honour that goads Antigone to further anger the king by taunting him with the idea that the only people who agree with him are the people who are afraid of the consequences. This questioning session in which Antigone refuses any avenues of escape foreshadows the end of the play when Antigone is so pride-struck regarding the nobility of her action that she doesn’t wait for the death sentenced to her by entombment, but commits suicide instead. A close look at each of these protagonists shows us that although they are both shown as tragic figures, it is the underlying principle of a stubborn refusal to compromise their principles that brings them to a point of no return. For Oedipus, he cannot accept that he might be the murderer he is seeking even though he could trace his own footsteps to the murder that dooms him. At the same time, it is impossible for him to accept the defeat of not having found the murderer as he has promised his people he will do. Finally, when it becomes clear that he is the murderer, his pride prevents him from facing his people, and his stubbornness insists he meets some punishment for his deeds so he stabs out his eyes and walks away from Thebes. For Antigone, her pride of family and duty will not allow her to leave her brother exposed on the hillside where he fell. Even when given the option to retract what she has done in order to spare her own life, Antigone is too stubborn to allow her actions to be negated and further works to anger the king. When she is finally sealed inside the cave as her death curse, she has no patience to wait and see if the king might change his mind. Instead, she stubbornly closes that option and hangs herself. It is essentially this fatal flaw of stubborn insistence that gets the better of each of these characters and ultimately leads to their tragic downfall. Works Cited Anouilhs, Jean. Antigone. London: Methuen Publishing, Ltd., 2001. Esch, Stacy Tartar. “Stepping Through Oedipus the King.” Brainstorm Services. 2002. June 9, 2006 Johnston, Ian. “Fate, Freedom and the Tragic Experience: An Introductory Lecture on Sophocles’s Oedipus the King.” Malaspina University College. October 11, 2000. June 9, 2006 Lathan, Peter. “Dic Edwards, Pip Utton and Jean Anouilh.” Theatre in Wales. May 5, 2002. June 9, 2006 Sophocles. Antigone, Oedipus the King, Electra. Oxford World’s Classics. Ed. Edith Hall. Oxford University Press, 1998. Read More