Antigone: The Theme of Family Loyalty Essay -- Sophocles’ Antigone

The notion of keep an eye on and justice is prevalent throughout all types of literature. In Greek culture, esteem is essential for creating a solid foundation within a rules of order and family. Honor will follow you until the day you perish, and beyond. The honor for men in Greece is spiritual in that loved ones testify respect to the deceased by giving them a proper burial. Nevertheless, when a gentleman acts upon betrayal of the city, that man looses the privilege to die in such honor. This is evident in the lifetime of Antigone when her two brothers, Polyneices and Eteocles, both die at each others hands at war when deciding the ruler of Thebes. Polyneices cannot have a proper burial, because the new king, Antigones uncle, Creon created a constabulary that decrees that anyone who tries to give Polyneices a proper burial will have a dire issuance death. In Sophocles Antigone, the quest that Antigone endures to stay accepted to her pure intentions of honoring Polyneices by giving him a proper burial is in juxtaposition with the feature that her defiance towards Creon is not only to do with Polyneices, hardly also to show appeasement to the gods.Antigones firm belief that her brother Polyneices should have a proper burial is established by her conviction in that the law of the gods is higher up all else. This law proclaims that all men be mourned and honour by family and friends through means of a suitable burial. Antigones select to put honor upon Polyneices soul is so grand that she ignores the advice of everyone around her, including her infant Ismene, who tries to pull her away from performing this criminal act because it will disobey the law set by King Creon, and lead to her demise. However, Antigone does not pity about the repercussions because even though s... ... For Antigone, if she dared to leave the dead man, her mothers son, dead and unburied, that would have been the real pain, not death (510-512). Her desire to bleak the spir it of her brother so that it can be at quiet explains the true reason of her rebellious nature. Although Antigone has a bad reputation with Creon, and perhaps Ismene, for being insubordinate, she stays true to her values throughout the entire cheer by following the law of gods, not so that she could appease them, but because she admired its value of honor and respect to loved ones that have passed away. This veneration and determination to give her brother a proper burial shows the true essence of her being that loyalty to family is in fact hold above all else. Work CitedSophocles. Antigone. The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. Ed. Knox and Mack. New York Norton, 1995.