Research Paper All through the history of humankind, humans have had to make decisions on following the laws of the state or laws of God. God’s laws or divine laws are laws that in the eyes of believers come directly from God. These laws are self-governing and independent from of the thoughts and opinions of man. These laws may change in human perception in time through new revelation and has humans go through evolution, however in this play we see how the God’s laws at the time affected actions of individuals. The Greek play Antigone describes the conflict between societal religious or moral laws versus state laws, which is placed by the power of the king. This conflict is portrayed through the show of dominance and power of king Creon and the equally proud and stubborn Antigone. Antigone considers god’s judgments and her duties towards her family more important than any state law, even though these state laws are made by the most powerful ruler of her time, who is also her very own uncle. In the play “Antigone” we see a variety of themes, I will be focusing on the theme of the generation gap and the importance of the show of power and pride and the idea of self-inflicted pain in life that Sophocles tries to convey to the audience. To begin the analysis of this play, I will give a description of the play, which will be followed by my premises and then to end it I will conclude this paper by stating what Sophocles left us to think about. Antigone by Sophocles is a story that continues where Oedipus leaves. Antigone tells Ismene that she needs in burying Polynices , with full honor even though Creon had stated that anyone attempting to bury Polynices should be publicly stoned to death. After Ismene’s refusal to bury … … middle of paper … …s a sign of him losing his power; she invokes divine law as defense of her actions, but implicit in her position is faith in the discerning power of her individual conscience. At the price of her own life, out of dedication to her principles higher than human law she makes her decisions and sticks to it, and not even the greatest of powers from the human cant not budge her from her ideologies. Creon makes a mistake in sentencing her-and his mistake is condemned, in turn; by the gods-but his position is an understandable one. In the wake of war, and with his reign so new, Creon has to establish his authority as supreme. On the other hand, Creon’s need to defeat Antigone seems at times to be extremely personal. At stake is not only the order of the state, but his pride and sense of himself as a king and, more fundamentally, a man blinds him from God’s divine will.
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