Who Is Antigone

Who is Antigone?

Antigone’s reliance on gods gives her the strength and perseverance to object the state’s power. Throughout the tragedy, Antigone displays a series of emotions as she is challenged to her mindset and what she believes is right. Due to her reverence towards the gods, Antigone was capable of burying Polyneices regardless of the consequences the state provides. This allowed the challenging of Creon’s power which set the plot of the whole tragedy.
Antigone believes that her duty towards the gods could be fulfilled if she buries Polyneices, as family is more important than the laws of the land. Due to the fact that she is also a woman and closely related to a lost individual, it is considered utterly disrespectful towards the god’s will and her family to not prepare the body and bury it.
However, due to Antigone’s loyalty towards the gods, it gave her the strength to argue at Creon on his flawed law. Antigone takes into consideration prior to the argument that the gods will be observing what she says. During the throwing of insults between Creon and Antigone on the burial of Polyneices, Antigone affirms that “religion dictates the burial of the dead” (24). By using the word “dictates”, Antigone informs us that the gods have the empowering and overall decision. She refers to the gods as a “religion” since in order to be on the side of the gods an individual must be faithful therefore it is treated in the sense of a religion. Creon then starts challenging Antigone by mentioning her “brother Eteocles” that “also died in the war” fought between the both of them (23). Creon is attempting to pause Antigone’s thinking by bringing up her other brother Eteocles. This then leads to the point Antigone made in terms of the gods dictating everything as Eteocles’ fortune was brought upon by the gods, and that they dictated