Spring 2010 - Interpretation

3 1 2
I n t e r p r e t a t i o n
to divine law—that her dead brother deserves special treatment for being
irreplaceable; husbands and children can be replaced, but not a brother once
the parents are dead. Her loss is past repair; thus she has nothing to lose by
sacrificing her life. The new principle at the heart of Antigone’s revision is
that personal happiness counts against familial duty. Accordingly, divine law
is relaxed in its rigor. But why, asks Ahrensdorf, does Antigone not apply the
principle to other aspects of life and other sources of happiness—to marriage
and children of her own? Because, he answers, Antigone loves death and the
promise of immortality more than she loves life and its ordinary pleasures.
Extreme piety is what brings about Antigone’s ruin.
Creon is as dogmatic in defense of the city as is Antigone in
defense of the family. Each believes that the gods endorse his or her opposite
course of action. Each also is forced to change direction: Creon toward piety
and family; Antigone toward agnosticism and despair. Creon will not push
matters so far as to risk losing his only remaining son (perhaps he agrees that
irreplaceable kin warrant special consideration). He relents, takes counsel
from the seer Teiresias, and produces a tragedy by burying Polyneices, on
Teiresias’s insistence, before rescuing Antigone, as initially planned. Rekindled
piety brings doom to the house of Creon, since Haemon his son, and
Eurydice his wife, both commit suicide following the suicide of Antigone.
Creon leaps from one dogmatic belief to another; Antigone,
conversely, moves from dogmatism to doubt. At the end of the play
she does not know what the gods approve or whether they mean to reward
her or punish her for her heroic obstinacy. She kills herself—or hastens her
death—because she has the courage to let go of dogmatic belief and to reason
about the requirements of piety and justice and the possibility of leading a
life in devotion to others. Ahrensdorf applauds her openness to philosophical
wonder (though little good it does her) and counts her the trilogy’s true hero.