Law Vs Love

Being hubris you are not able to accept the fact that you are sometimes wrong or have too much pride to reach out for a lifeline when one is offered. In the Greek play, "Antigone," By Sophocles, is about how a man's and woman's flaw can cause them to make rash decisions. Antigone gives her sister an ultimatum whether or not she will be rebelling against the law for Polyneices, their brother. Antigone gets caught by the Sentry, burying her brother knowing she was going against the law, right away the Sentry takes her to Creon, and she denies nothing. Haimon convinces Creon not to kill Antigone by threatening him by saying, her death will cause another, so Creon ends up locking Antigone in a vault providing her with food giving her time to think about what she has done, in other words jail time. Tiresias comes to tell Creon his fate that two people in his family are going to die. Choragos advices Creon to free Antigone and bury Polyneices because the gods swift quickly. Although Antigone had good intentions her hubris causes her to be blinded with brotherly love, honor, and respect for religious laws.

Antigone's love for her brother causes her pride to do what she thinks was the right thing to do. Antigone clearly shows her stubbornness to break the laws when she says," If that is what you think, I should not want you, even if you asked to come. You have made your choice; you can be what you want to be. But I will bury him; and if I must die I say that this crime is holy; I shall lie down With him in death, And I shall be as a dear To him as he to me. It is the dead, Not the living, who make the longest demands; We die for ever . . . You may do as you like, Since apparently the laws of the gods mean nothing to you" (Prologue.55-65). Antigone argues that her love and loyalty for her brother Polynieces and her family is stronger and more important than any law. After giving her sister, Ismene an ultimatum her sister chooses not to rebel with her, she disagrees, making Antigone not want anything to do with her. Antigone shows her denial to what she has done when she says, "You have touched it at last: that bridal bed Unspeakable, horror of son and mother mingling: Their crime, infection of all our family! O Oedipus, father and brother! Your marriage strikes from the grave to murder mine. I have been a stranger here in my own land: All my life The blasphemy of my birth has followed me" (IV.37-44). Antigone does not realize that she is in a deeper problem with herself; she is in denial with herself. She blames her father for the curse he began and that she is now living. Antigone's tragic flaw is being hubris, her biggest problem.

Antigone's motivation for being hubris is love and honor for her family. Antigone shows her demand from the gods when she says, "The dead man and the gods who rule who rule the dead Know whose act this was. Words are not friends" (II.152-153).