Antigone

Sophocles tackles many ideas in Antigone that resonate just as strongly with audiences today as they did with the people of Sophocles’ Athens.  One of the most important themes of the play and the downfall of the play's tragic heroes, Antigone and Creon, is hubris, which is excessive pride and arrogance.  At the opening of the play, Antigone decides to defy Creon’s decree to leave the body of Polyneices unburied.  When she is caught, she doesn’t try to hide what she has done.  On the contrary, Antigone is so proud of her defiance and her loyalty to her brother that she eagerly throws her defiance in Creon’s face and becomes enraged which Ismene tries to take partial credit for Polyneices’ burial.  Antigone’s pride leads to her being sentenced to death by Creon for violating his orders.

Hubris also leads to Creon’s eventual downfall and to the demise of several of his loved ones.  Creon believes that all of his people should unwaveringly follow all of his orders and be severely punished for disobedience.  As the play progresses, several people ask Creon to spare Antigone’s life, but Creon’s pride will not allow him to retract the death sentence he has issued for Antigone.  Not even Tereisias’ foreboding vision of evil and trouble for Thebes is enough to coerce Creon to change his policies.  Because of his unwavering hubris, Creon ultimately loses his son, Haemon, and his wife, Eurydice, to suicide.  The downfalls of Antigone and Creon serve as lessons for the reader that, as the Chorus notes, the more arrogance a person has, the greater the revenge of God.