Ranging from the devotion toward a country to obligations within a friendship, loyalty serves as the bond between humans in most aspects of the living and dynamic world. Yet while fidelity is expected to be stable, extraneous conflicts can impose on the sustainability of a relation, leaving the members of the bond either having trouble maintaining the bond or coalescing tighter in the need to show endurance. In Sophocles’s Antigone, a soldier, Polyneices, dies in war over control of Thebes, leaving his family to mourn over his death. When the king of Thebes, Creon, places a law over the city making illegal the act of burying the dead, Polyneices’s sister, Antigone, appoints herself the duty of defying Creon’s law. Antigone buries Polyneices …show more content…
In Antigone’s accounts with her sister Ismene, she insists that “[she will not] be caught betraying [Polyneices]” (Prologue.58). The loyalty Antigone holds to her brother overrules her ties to the state, and this family connection creates a strong emotional tie than cannot be broken by legality. If Antigone were to obey the state’s laws, she would be allowing her brother to go unburied and impeding on Polyneice’s ability to join the afterlife. Furthermore, Antigone denies Creon’s laws because she feels that he “[has] no right to keep [her] from [what is hers]” (Prologue.61). While Antigone is related to Creon by blood, her relation to Polyneices is closer through her family line. Creon’s law inflicts Antigone’s restless need to seek Polyneices’s justice because the order of a heinous ruler should not hold her bound from acting out of direct familial loyalty. Thus to respect her direct family, Antigone vows that “[she will] please the ones [she is] duty bound to please” (Prologue.109). Her value for family reigns Antigone’s decisions, rather than the law that opposes Polyneices’s burial. By reason of respect, Antigone’s brother’s burial seems to her the most moral point she can make when her loyalty conflicts with Creon’s law. Determinately, Antigone maintains a zealous outlook on her family rather than legally complying to …show more content…
Regarding the legality of Polyneices’s burial, Antigone feels that “Zeus did not announce those laws unto [her]” (2.508). Antigone heeds unto the preferred words of the holy when deciding which figure’s law to follow. The gods’ law of necessary burial appeals to Antigone, as they last perpetually unlike Creon’s worldly and temporal oppression. Given longstanding hope, Antigone finds greater reason to bury Polyneices seeing that her loyalty to the gods will have a more immense affect on the afterlife. Likewise, Antigone’s perception on Creon’s human rule pales in comparison to the gods because “[Antigone does] not think / anything which [Creon] proclaimed strong enough / to let a mortal override the gods” (2.510-512). Antigone’s faith and loyalty to the gods aid her justification when burying Polyneices since the gods hold a higher power than humans to affect fate. She regards judgment from the gods more important than Creon’s laws because if Antigone chose not to bury her brother, she would consequently suffer from failing the gods’ laws and loyalty. Backing down her morals to mortal rule is contrary to Antigone’s principles that “a fear of any human will / lead to [her] punishment among the gods” (2.517-518). Like the proclamation from man, Antigone will not be constrained by the fear Creon embeds into Theban citizens because she has an