Finally, we have come to the end of the play Antigone by Sophocles. After reading and discussing this play with Dr. Edwin in in the class, I have a better understanding on this play. What I have learned from this play is: Pride is the source of foolishness which leads to the defeat in life.
The character that impressed me the most in this drama is Creon. Being an antagonist in this drama, who also fits all the criteria of a tragic hero, he has experienced a very great downfall from a high status of a glorious king at the beginning of the play to a man which is in despair and has lost everything at the end.
What leads to this downfall? It's his pride. He is too proud and self-righteous to an extent he challenges God! He has done wrong in the very beginning of the drama of being proclaim the new edict of not burying the dead Polyneices. As a king, he should know that this is something against God's law. But being a king, make him feels the supremacy of the highest status among the Thebes, perhaps he has forgotten that he is just a human being that lives under the government of the universal law governed by the Almighty.
Antigone's action and her defense for herself should be a kind of reminder for him to abandon the edict. But he sentenced her to death and had never changed. His beloved son, Haemon, came to beseech him. But he disqualified his son's judgment because he despised his son's youth so he had never changed. He was told that all the citizens was disapproving his action. But he thought that being the superior ruler of the kingdom will never be governed by another's judgment so he had never change. Tiresias, the seer, came to advise him. But he disrespected him as an old man so he had never changed.
What make him so stubborn, never listen to other's advice and never want to give up the edict? PRIDE! See how pride has leaded him to all these foolish acts! See how pride has destroyed Creon!
At last, although he has realized his fault, but it's too late. Since he had never listened to any other mankind's advice, God shows him the fate of being disobedient and challenging God's law. With the great strike from his losing of his beloved son and wife, he is now realizing that he is just a human being which will never win God.
Creon's story has given me a great insight about life. No matter how intelligent or how "wise" one may think he or she is, no matter how one struggling to go against God, eventually,
God shall win and He is the only winner.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment