Antigone Essay Research Paper ANTIGONE In the

Antigone Essay, Research Paper

ANTIGONE In the story of Antigone, two very headstrong people’s beliefs are

matched up against each other. Creon, the king, made it law that no traitor to

the Kingdom shall have a proper burial, instead they will be left laying on the

ground to rot and to be eaten by the animals. This was the case of Antigone’s

brother, Polyneices. Antigone’s love for her brother was so great that she went

against the law, eventhough she knew Creon’s punishment for breaking the law

was public stoning, which ultimately resulted in death. Creon, who had an equal

amount of determination, refused to back down from his law for his own

reasons even after Antigone ignored it. He could not submit himself to the will

of a woman. At that time, women were looked at as being in the same class as

slaves. If he did, it would have showed weakness in him and the people would

have overthrown him for letting a woman have that effect on him. So instead

of the public stoning, Creon sentenced Antigone to die in a cave where she

could starve to death. Instead of dying a slow miserable death, she committed

suicide by hanging herself. As it turns out, this set off a string of events for the

king that he could have never saw coming. The first of the tragic events that

would unfold was the death of his son. Haemon was Creon and Eurydice’s son

and was next in line to the throne with Antigone as his wife. Creon’s son was

set to be married to Antigone, but after Creon sentenced her to death, Haemon

turned on his father. He was outraged that Creon had taken away his future

wife, in which he was very much in love with. He was so outraged, that he

would even break the unique and special bond between father and son.

Haemon felt incomplete without Antigone and could not stand being apart from

her. He found away to solve his problem and get revenge on his father at the

same time. He had taken his own life and at the same time killed the future of

the family’s place in the throne. Creon was crushed at what his son did,

especially hearing it from someone else. After hearing of Haemon’s death,

Eurydice was completely devastated and felt some what violated. She felt

Creon was responsible for the death of not only Haemon, but for Megareus

who was killed some years before. Haemon was the only son left for Eurydice

and the last only one left to inherit the throne. Eurydice’s life had gone from

having a picture book ending to becoming a true, old fashioned tragedy. Her

last remaining son was a short time away from marrying a beautiful young

woman and starting their lives together, its every mothers wish for their son.

First her son’s fiancee dies by suicide and then her son is torn from her life in

an instant. It was too much to happen to one person in such a short amount of

time. Not too many people can handle events like that, including Eurydice. She

also found the same solution as her son. She did not want to live with such

great sadness and could not live with Creon anymore. After all he had been

responsible for the two deaths that greatly affected her life. Things could not

possibly be worse for Creon, his son and his wife are dead, and there’s no one

to inherit the throne in his family. He knows that he was the cause of all this

misery that surrounds him. He was now paying the price for such an unfair

judgment against Antigone. If he had a second chance to do things over, he

surely would have done things much differently. He realized that his ruling was

not worth all the pain, guilt, and suffering he caused. It would not have been so

bad if they had not committed suicide, but Haemon killed himself holding

Antigone, his love, and his mother killed herself violently with a sword. Creon’s

head fills with suicidal thoughts and begins to break down. In the end, he does

almost nothing but pray for death. Although the story ends with him leaving

with these types of thoughts, one can only imagine he met the same fate as his

son and wife. In conclusion, it is obvious to see the repercussions of Creon’s

faithfulness to his beliefs. He had basically lost everything, his wife and son

were gone, he would not be able to maintain his position as king, and he had

lost all self control. The people would have overthrown him if he continued.

This was all due to the fact that he made one really wrong ruling. Too much

power and control cause an increase in arrogance and can cause some people

to make totally irrational thoughts. If Creon had continued to rule, these events

hopefully would have taught him to consider what happens to the people with

such harsh laws. Creon could have easily avoided all this if he had actually

thought about what might happen if one of the law breakers was some one in

his own family.