Sophocles' Antigone - An analysis

Sophocles’ Antigone, the play dealing with the Theban Post-Oedipus problems, highlights the conflicting viewpoints and philosophy of two women, Antigone and Ismene, set against each other through the trials of fate. As is the classic Greek way, neither stance is necessarily wrong. Both contain within themselves a logical thought process, they merely travel on different lines.

Sophocles' Antigone begins with the news that Antigone and Ismene's two brothers (Eteocles and Polynices) have perished while fighting each other in battle. Since Eteocles fought on the side of Thebes, and Polynices was the aggressor against his own city, on their deaths Eteocles was granted full burial rights while Polynices was deemed a traitor.

As per Greek law, a traitor's body is to be left out to rot, to be consumed by dogs and crows, and the crime of burying a traitor against the order of the State is punishable by death.

Keeping in mind the recent turmoil the state has undergone with first Laertes, then Oedipus and now Eteocles and Polynices being disposed of due to a variety of reasons, Creon, who had taken over the throne in the meantime, thought it best to restore law and order by following the letter of the law blindly. Hence, Eteocles was buried with full honors and Polynices' body was left unattended.

Until this point in Sophocles' Antigone, the play had been pretty phallogocentric, but at this point Antigone and Ismene emerge from the peripheries to uncover the integral dilemma of the play.

Antigone has seen her father struggle to find a solution to Thebe's plague, only to find that he himself was the cause. She has discovered that she was birthed from an incestuous marriage bed. She has borne the grief of her mother's suicide and her father's self-imposed exile. And lastly, she watched her own brothers hack each other to death. The last straw was Creon's order that Polynices was not to be given his burial rights. Under Greek religion, that is as good as consigning him to an eternity in limbo, as the burial rites are essential to guarantee the safe passage of a soul into the Underworld.

Antigone, given the ordeals already suffered, decides that she will bear no further and puts her foot down. Her point is poignantly made. Earthly life, she reasons, is but a blip in existence, the afterlife is eternal. Therefore, a sacrifice on her part in this world is a small price to pay in order to purchase with it eternal peace for her brother's soul. Here, the classic case of Religion vs State is brought out, where the futility of imposing a law upon a person who believes in an eternal afterlife is revealed through a dialogue between Antigone and Creon. Antigone has been perceived by many to be a feminist figure, combating at once the Law, her status as a woman in a patriarchal kingdom and the pleas of her family. She exudes strength, determination and conviction and, fully knowing her path leads to death, nevertheless resolves to do what she feels is right. Keeping in mind the status of women in Greek times, her character would be borderline scandalous and downright blasphemous in the eyes of the orthodoxy.

Ismene presents the perfect counterfoil to Antigone in the play. She has suffered through all that Antigone has, but she deals with it in a way that is more in keeping with the Greek ideal of what a woman should be. She accepts that Polynices has been dealt an unjust punishment, and she sympathizes with Antigone's sentiments, however she does not see the benefit in compounding the familial woes by revolting against Creon's judgement and being put to death. She is of the view that a woman's place is to suffer in silence. She has no place in politics or law-making, and she is powerless to influence matters in a patriarchal society. She chooses the path of prudence and remains silent, though in her heart she bears the same regret about how things have turned out with her brother.

In a modern reading, the readers will view Antigone as the brave revolutionary figure, while Ismene will cop criticism as a cowardly figure who reinforces the subjugation of women.

However, there is another way of viewing this. Antigone's path, though undoubtedly heroic, did not achieve much and led only to her death and compounded woes for her family and the kingdom at large. Ismene chose prudence and caution, and regardless of whether the motive was fear or otherwise, the fact remains that she survived and thus still had some influence, however minimal, on how things may turn out. A survivor has options before him/her, a martyr is already dead.

In this way, through the juxtaposition of Antigone and Ismene's characters, Sophocles outlined two paths that can be taken at any given moral decision, with almost equal justification for both, as an almost eerie prediction of Jean Paul Sartre's concept of radical freedom.

Which choice is the right one to make depends entirely on the kind of person you are and the values you hold dear. But Sophocles' Antigone shows us that there is an Antigone and an Ismene in all of us and it is up to us to as to which path we choose to honor with our efforts.

Ayn Rand and the Abdication of Judgement

According to Ayn Rand (renowned Objectivist philosopher and author), the motto, “Judge not, that ye be not judged” amounts to nothing more and nothing less than an abdication of moral responsibility.

In Ayn Rand's eyes, refraining from judgement is the same as watching an injustice being perpetrated before you and doing nothing to prevent or deter it. Some may say that their non-participation means that they may not be held accountable for the act. Ayn Rand would say that their inaction in trying to prevent the evil makes them accountable, and moreover, almost an accomplice. Because in refraining from preventing evil, you are encouraging it to flourish.

I aim to take this a step further than she did, and extend the responsibility of judgement not just to morals, but to art and to culture. As far as morals are concerned, a philosophy of moral judgement would require a standardized moral code that applied to all of humanity. Ayn Rand believed this moral code exists, I personally disagree with her in this aspect. The reasons have been described in detail in a previous post. You can read it here.

But the essence of what Ayn Rand is trying to say is still valid. When, as a reasoning human being, one gives up his ability to judge and defers the responsibility that comes along with it, then one gives the green signal to decadence and degradation. If every belief and every philosophy is held up to the sternest test of cynical judgement, the faulty parts and weak links will immediately crumble beneath the scrutiny. But if judgement is abdicated, then the faulty bits are allowed to stand, and whole palaces of thought are constructed upon those quivering and barely coherent foundations. The problem, if not nipped in the bud, grows to exponential proportions and is soon beyond the ability of any one man or community to solve.

In the world of modern man, one of the worst pestilences to have hit human thought (barring humanity itself) is the mental attitude of diplomacy. One lives in mortal fear of offending others and as a result, any form of judgement is labelled conservatism, narrow-mindedness, fundamentalism, radicalism, extremism etc. And the fear of being associated with any of these labels induces men to give up their power of reasoning and judging altogether. They find it easier to meekly nod their heads in an understanding manner while the belligerent masses traverse from idiocy to advanced idiocy, unchecked by the reasoning of sanity.

The effects of diplomacy-induced-degradation can be directly connected to Democratic thought. A democracy specializes in creating equality between unequals. All forms of thought are to be considered equal, and all are to be given respect, even if the thought does not warrant any.

The effects of this “Philosophy of non-judgement,” which in my opinion should more accurately be called the “Philosophy of non-thought,” can be summarized in one statement.

The Degradation of Art and Culture

This symptom has seen an unprecedented, explosive rate of growth in the past fifteen years. Art has given up the one thing it possessed: Sublimity.

When the judgement of the value of art has been proscribed, then art no longer has the incentive to aspire to a level of excellence. An artist will put in hours, days, months of work into a single creation because he believes his creation will be unique and will stand alone and be celebrated in posterity as the only one of its kind. But if you try to democratize artistic criticism, if you attempt to judge sublime art on the same level as commercial art, if they are both held to the same standard (i.e. public popularity), then you remove the imperative that compels artists to put in that effort of which sublimity is a result. A practical and less conscientious artist would rather create a steady strea, of substandard art, than create one truly great work. Commercial success becomes the sole benefit of art. Art becomes its own worst nightmare, it becomes utilitarian.

The results are everywhere; movies do not bother constructing coherent storylines and compensate for it with popular club music and bewilderingly developed graphics. Authors compromise on their quality so that they may optimize their quantity. And its justification is: This is what the people want, therefore this is what we shall provide.

Right there, that statement typifies what Ayn Rand refers to as the abdication of judgement. The speaker of that sentence has attempted to absolve himself of artistic responsibility by shifting the blame to the public. But the public is not the body that possesses the ability to create sublimity, that power resides with the artist alone. Therefore, the responsibility of action and of sublime creation also resides with the artist alone and may not be blamed on fickle demand.

The purpose of art is to elevate. Art is meant to be exclusive, not inclusive. And a society that discourages the passing of judgement on art can never experience the bracing fresh air that can only be breathed on the peaks of artistic excellence.

A culture that worries more about how something is said rather than what is said is a culture helplessly on the path to decay and eventual death. Truth is strangled so as to supplement superficial fraternity. Innovation is smothered lest it ruffle a few feathers. An easy example of the far reaching effects of the direction this thought takes, is the co-existence of Creationism and Darwinism in an educational system that is supposedly secular, even though Creationism has no factual or scientific merit. It exists in a secular, educational institute, solely to appease the feelings of those offended by Darwinism. The statement made there is that it is more important to avoid offending people than to educate our youth.

As Ayn Rand succinctly puts it: In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.

Friedrich Nietzsche and the Death of Morality

If there were a man, superior in intellect, superior in ability, superior in discernment, evaluation, devaluation, subtextual perception and a pure embodiment of power, what benefits will morality bring him?

This is the question that Friedrich Nietzsche brings to our attention repeatedly throughout his works.

This is the question with which Nietzsche destroyed morality.

Whether you agree with his view of life or not, this question brings into the spotlight in the most poignant manner the very essence of the crisis in moral integrity today.

Nietzsche’s view of nature was extremely aristocratic. Not the aristocracy of race or nobility, but the aristocracy of greatness. For him, the entire phenomenon of nature was geared solely to facilitate the existence of five or six truly great men (if even those many) in a generation. Truly great men, not the easy adjective which we would fain fling at any passing flash in the pan.

The peculiarity of genius is that it can take mankind in directions that no amount of coordinated and fraternal effort could achieve on its own. No mass of mediocre, or even highly talented minds put together can quite traverse that gap that exists between intelligence and genius. Only one mind can even fathom the idea, only one mind is capable of envisioning the path. Its execution may be left to the rest of man, but the power of its conceptualization lies with the genius alone.

Now conjecture the existence, if only hypothetically, of this great man within a civilized society with an established moral code. An education system trained to make a nation think alike, a religious ethic drilled into society from infancy to enforce and then reinforce one trait and one trait only, supreme above all others: Humility.

Consider now, what this worship of humility as a virtue and condemnation of hubris as a flaw will do to a mind that is, indeed above all others; a mind that can only function on planes and in dimensions not even visible, let alone accessible, to the average man. A mind that cannot afford to take on obligations and responsibilities lumped upon him by those below him. A mind that births ideas that cannot be encumbered by considerations of charity or sympathy.

Just as Niccolò Machiavelli demands that a ruler’s only responsibility be the welfare of the state, and that he may not be judged on a moral basis but only on the basis of his competence in maintaining the welfare of the state, Nietzsche demands a similar attitude towards the higher form of men.

Morals and morality were created to keep the raving minds of masses in check and channel their energies in a uniform manner. But one whose mind does not come of the same stock, must he be judged by the same standard? Must everything always be watered down to the lowest common denominator? Must humanity always gear itself to help the weakest at the cost of the strongest?

In most existing societies, the answer to the above questions are a resounding Yes. Nietzsche’s is a resounding No. The harmful effects of this sort of decadent morality, he would point out, is clearly demarcated in the chaos that follows every attempt at the introduction of democracy or socialism in a country. Both these forms of governments share one thing in common, the masses are handed the power of tyranny. The herd mentality plays dictator. Every decision, every policy, every reform would have to consider the lowest amongst us and set it to his levels. The best teachers are engaged in teaching the weakest students, the best students have to make do with the average professor. Public expenditure is lavished on sustaining those unable to sustain themselves. One may argue that this is what differentiates humans from animals, this ability to ignore the natural hierarchy and aid one and all as far as one finds himself capable of it.

Nietzsche’s point is that the system has been set in place by the lowest denominator, for the benefit of the lowest denominator. Individuals are crushed in the flood of downwards oriented societies, ideas are throttled before they can be fully developed, humanity, as a race, declines. He argues that a superior man should not have to adhere to a code agreed upon by lesser men. His means may be immoral, if there is any such thing as a unified moral code for mankind, but his end is justification in itself. If the man becomes an Overman, then he is, in Nietzsche’s words, beyond good and evil.

Thus morality, in this view, becomes a tool of oppression rather than a code of coexistence. It becomes the crab’s claws that stop the other crab from getting out. It is the yolk of decadence that the lesser men would wish us all to be mired in for eternity. This was Nietzsche’s astounding claim. And thus it is that Nietzsche destroyed morality.

I return to the original question.

If there were a man, superior in intellect, superior in ability, superior in discernment, evaluation, devaluation, subtextual perception and a pure embodiment of power, what benefits will morality bring him?

The answer is: None.

Claws

It's a gem! cried he, ecstatic.
Oh, look at it, is it not wonderful?
He held it aloft to family, friends,
Eager to share his joy, his pride.
I found this gem, he proclaimed.
It was all me, don't you see?
This is my life. Can you see it?
My life, gleaming and glinting,
Sparkling stardust. Inanimate, you call it?
Fools! What know ye of life?
Where are your gems, may I ask?
Does any possess the sheer majesty,
The clarity, the quality of mine?
I thought not.

Yes, they said, yes, it is a wonderful gem indeed.
But, remember when, in your younger days,
When your mind was naive and vain,
When you understood far less than you claimed,
When you set about taking a hammer
To your own treasure trove - - yes, I see
You do remember - - Well, there was that
Stupid thing you did, you see.
There is that, they all said. That is undeniable.
And so, said they, and so why should you
Hold this gem? Are you not the squanderer?
Are you not the man of pilf, the creator
Of refuse, of waste, of negative energy?
Are you, then, deserving of this gem?
Do you not do it a disservice, coveting it,
Caressing it with your bungling hands?
Give it up, gems are not for you, dearest.
We know what is in store for you,
It may sound rough, but it is true.

Confound you! he cried. Beasts and parasites all.
A man hath done wrong, has he no claim
To righting himself again? Are you so pure,
Then, that you bear no blemish on your
Evil, conniving countenances? Is not your
Covetousness a crime more severe, done,
As it is, out of malice, not ignorance?
Come ye one or all, come ye to seize it
From me, and I shall show thee the wrath
Of Achilles. Hector, at least, had honour.
What honour in your actions? Beasts, I say,
And parasites all. Do I not see amongst
Your pretty words, the forked tongue
Of Milton's serpent? Blind do you think me?

Round they crept, vermin of the masses.
Clawing, creeping, ever closer, groping.
Clutched he to his chest his gem, weeping.
Who could he turn to? Lord, he cried,
Save me, not for me, for I have forsaken thee,
But for thy gem, thy most wondrous creation.
Save it, and in saving it, save me.
Fool, they cried, there is no penitence
For the wrongdoers. Penitence comes
At a dear price, a price you are not prepared
To pay, turn you then to the Lord? Bah!
That brooding moisture you feel about you,
That is the the disgorged spit of contempt.
The Lord hath forsaken thee, now forsake
Thee this gem, that we may rightfully honour
It by virtue of souls more worthy.

The first of the masses, the friends he held dear
Clasped at his ankles, flaying skin
And severing tendons, causing anguish,
But no anguish compared to the prospect,
Nay, the now tangible fear of losing the gem
To the greed of the world. The question,
Never uttered, never proclaimed, burned
Through the windows to their wretched souls
And showed him, in all worldly lucidity
Their inmost thoughts.

If we can't have it, why should he?
Are we not worthy, gem, of thee?
Flailing, he was brought to the ground
By the remorseless advance of the host.
Still he clasped, in hope, still they lunged
At it, probing, wrenching.

At last, naught was left of him but sinews
And dried blood. And search as they might,
They found no gem, only clay and death.

Imperpetuity

You gave me life, you did not ask me if I wanted to live.
Having indoctrinated me with propaganda about
Why we exist, what we are supposed to accomplish,
How we are supposed to go about it, and a few other
Vague and half-baked theories, you set me loose into
The open world, far too unprepared, far too naïve.

You don’t send a child (for that is what I was, no matter
My age) you don’t send a child into the arms of a world
Chock full of predators, just lying in wait to exploit any
Sign of weakness, any form of ignorance. Moreover,
You certainly don’t do it by telling him wondrous and
Misguided lies, aimed at protecting his feeble mind,
But doing nothing whatsoever to prepare him for what
Awaits everyone unfortunate enough to live to adulthood.

What you did, is entrap my mind for 17 years, leave it weak,
Under-exposed, unaware. Is it any wonder, then, that having
Experienced reality and come to terms with it, the mind
Then turns back upon your teachings and gazes upon it
With the wrath of one betrayed? Does it shock you to know
That a child does not enjoy being lied to? You, who are to be
My moral center, my core structure around which I must base
My entire infrastructure of values, if I were to find YOU corrupt,
Do you really have the right to marvel at my immorality?

I did not yield, that is an argument that could be made for you.
Whatever you did wrong, you at least instilled in me an ego,
A pride, a self-assurance. Something that allowed me,
In the face of a mob, in the face of the entire world, even
In the face of truth itself, to stick out my chest and say,
“It is me that is right. If you disagree, you deserve contempt.”
That ego sustained me through the years of my real education,
The years I was bludgeoned by realities, striking down every
Belief and world-view that I held with the smugness of a half-wit.
That education still continues. But the ego allowed me to put forth
An un-cracked exterior, showing no signs of distress or incohesion,
Whilst inwardly, under the hood, I rectified what I could,
And justified the rest.

And so, despite being given no inkling of the battlefield, the war zone
That awaited me, despite being shown a picture of Eden, without
Ever being told that I was never to live in that Eden, that mythical Eden,
That minds as wondrously impious as yours must have thought up,
(Heaven and hell, I am sure, were dreamt up by a parent) I survived.
I found my own weapons, I saw others find theirs, and I realized
That everyone had their own war to fight, and no two weapons need be
The same. That taught me diversity, the fact that no person is good or bad,
No people are evil or benevolent, no government is competent
Or even trying to put up an appearance of being so.

Lie after lie was reduced to dust by my ongoing quest for knowledge.
If you must know what was the harbinger of the death knoll, let it be known,
It was books. The cream of 4 millennia of the best minds our species ever
Possessed combined to leave us what can only be described as manna,
A survival kit, an actual lens through which our view is not distorted,
But enhanced. That lens gave me perspective, it gave me knowledge,
It gave me power. Ego now had some real ground to stand upon,
And stand it did. It has never been as secure within me as it is now,
With years of reading behind it, allowing me to throw in the face
Of challengers impressive quotes and plagiarized weltanschauungs.

And so, I find myself surrounded by an arsenal of weapons, ones that
I may now consider myself highly proficient in handling, that allow
Me the comfort of instilling fear in people around me, a quality which,
No matter what anyone tells you, is something invaluable and to be coveted.
And so, looking back, I could bring myself to forgive you, perhaps, for the lies,
Seeing as they were what propelled me to become what I have become.
I could, and perhaps I already have. But the war had not yet been won.
Like the archers at Uhud, I celebrated too early, and I paid the price.

There was my fortress, impenetrable, unassailable, a perfect defense.
And then there was her. She came bearing no arms, no tactics,
No subterfuge. She came to me with a language that I did not understand.
She came with pure, unapologetic honesty. Like a breeze, or more so a gale,
Blowing in through the cracks, flailing about me, all grace and glory,
A storm of delight, and I reacted in the only way I could, in the only way
I had learnt, been forced to learn. I fought with my weapons and my Ego.

Have you ever taken a sword to the breeze? Have you ever experienced
That moment, that zenith of futility? Does it not make you feel a right fool?
What distinction can you make between Quixote and me? His enemy, if not
Animate, was at least corporeal. Mine was a wraith, a shade, a ghost.
I tried to injure it, I thought I had won, too. But it did not leave me.
It dared yet to cool my skin, to force me to feel the pleasure of contentment
That was not self-procured, that came from without, not within.

Do you see what I am getting at? Do you see why, having set out to write
An ode to a loved one, I nevertheless end up with a tirade against you?
It is because I am now faced with a choice, a choice so terrible, I would
Wish it upon no one. I am faced with a choice between that breeze
And my weapons. My arsenal, so dear to me, my sustenance, my pride,
Everything I have accomplished on my own for 25 years, I am to set
It aflame by my own hand. I cannot entrap the breeze within my walls,
No, even I am not that cruel. I must destroy the walls themselves.

And so, this is what I accuse you of. This failure to warn me, to prepare me.
This hesitancy or inability that led you to point me in the wrong direction.
That did not teach me that love and Ego cannot coexist, that did not tell me
That all the knowledge in the world would not help me understand how to
Make her smile, to stop her from crying. To tell me that my modus operandi,
Dominance through fear, which was my weapon of choice, would be the very
First weapon I had to surrender. You once made me raise a goat, befriend it,
And then forced me to take a knife to it. It would have been a better lesson
If you had told me what that goat signified. It would have prepared me
For today. It would have hardened me. Today, I am exposed, and oh, so weak.

But, weapon or no weapon, I will not yield. And I will not perpetuate the lies.
When it is my turn, I will try it the hard way, the way of truth. Let us see
If the minds of kids are as feeble as we make them out to be, and if they
Warrant the level of protection that you seem to think they do. I will test
Mine, I will not cushion them with lies, but slice into them with the scythe
Of reality. I do not know if mine is the right way. Somehow, my Ego does
Not reassure me here. But I know, as I watch the charred remains
Of my fortress, that my childrens’ fortresses will look very different from mine.