Examples Of Crimes In Antigone

crime is pride / pride is crime

While everybody makes mistakes, the person who has too much pride to admit that he is wrong only causes further damage. In the play Antigone, by the Greek playwright Sophocles, there is a perfect example of this shown through the character Kreon. The brother of the late queen of Thebes, Jocasta, and brother-in-law of the late king, Oedipus, Kreon assumes the throne of the city of Thebes. He regards his nephew Polynices, the attacker of Thebes, as a traitor. Consequently, in his first act as King of Thebes, he forbids the burial of Polynices under pain of death, a ruling that appears to violate an ancient moral law and sacred tradition: the right of all families to bury their dead. Antigone, the sister
Antigone has a sense of universal humanity and she is willing to risk committing a crime to protect that sacred belief. "No, /Even if you were willing to "be senseless"/ I wouldn't want the help you could give. / It's too late. / You must be as you believe. / I will bury him myself. / If I die for doing that, good:/ I will stay with him, my brother;/and my crime will be devotion" (Lines 82-90). The pride of Antigone is her devotion, it is her reasoning "You must be as you believe", that lead to her crime. For Antigone it is too late, because the man in charge is "being senseless" - but also living in accord to his
As a new ruler, he feels it necessary to prove himself to his citizens; therefore he rules his state with a firm hand. "It's my job to rule this land. / There is no one else" (Lines 885-886). It is the stubborn attempts of Antigone that actually seem to threaten Kreon- he wants to make sure that he is the only one in charge. It is Kreon that decides the punishment for the devotion, pride, of Antigone and orders her death. "Now they'll have to be women and know their place. / Even men, rash men, run / when they see how close death is to life" (Lines 716-718). This quote of Kreon's is very ironic; he might not have even realized it though. Antigone does become the man in her boldness, proving herself more than a match for Kreon. In retaliation, he sentences her to be buried alive in a tomb even though she is betrothed to his own son, Haemon. It is Kreon's incapability to attempt to reason with the way the situation is turning towards a dark and twisting path; he is not a rash man- he is not running or seeing how close death is to life. If Kreon were not so involved in protecting his pride to see the light of reason in this situation he could have avoided an ending of tremendous sufferings and sorrow for him and his