Class 3 Reflections

September 22, 2010

Antigone c. 440 BCE

Medea c. 430 BCE

Son of Pritha, fraud, insolence and hostile conceit; anger, rough speech too, and ignorance; these are the traits of those born to the demonic condition.

- Bhagavad Gita (16.4)

Although Antigone and Medea could not be more different from last week’s readings, these tragic plays do dovetail the Bhagavad Gita and Mencius in that they supply good examples of individuals blinded by desire and emotion to the point of absolute ruin. They give worst-case scenarios of exactly the kinds of demonic conditions that human shortcomings can bring.

Before seminar, I didn’t know that these plays speak of a time prior to when they were actually written. The first audiences of Antigone and Medea knew these stories' characters as existing 400 years before them. Just as Genesis does, the plays show the vestiges tribal mentality when humans were still owned by their more basic instincts. They confirm the conscious and unconscious struggle that all civilized people grapple with in their task to remain part of the social order in which they live. Truly, the balance that must be struck between this social order and that of Nature is one that we seek today. The few thousand years of since the Neolithic Revolution have not fully suppressed the millions worth of evolution that took us from savages to sapiens.

Continuing on with one of last week’s focuses, no belief system that amounts to restraint and moderation is owned by any character in Medea. Mencius would say that, consequently, Medea, Creon, Jason & Co. go through considerable hardship - hardship that they do not benefit from in the long run. (Au contraire). The players never question their actions in terms of their potential fruits nor do they really delve into their selves, exploring their motives. They are often seen to obey their emotional impulses, act as if they are beyond reproach and accept no responsibility for their actions.

With these ideas already hinted at in Medea, I found apt the chorus’s eerie description of rivers flowing backward, foreshadowing the horrific events to come. Man, in doing such evil, disturbs the natural flow, as intimated by the chorus, “Flow backward to your sources, sacred rivers, and let the world’s great order be reversed.” A very similar idea is expressed in Antigone where, in the first choral ode (306-335), man is juxtaposed to nature; man, guilty of perverting all that is natural.

The natural flow interrupted by humans is evident in Creon’s rule. As he is a ruler in a time of war, he speaks tough at the beginning of the play and swears to show no mercy to anyone who threatens the state. The fawning chorus, here, reflects exactly how the citizens feel, “Such is your pleasure… you have the power to enact any law, both for the dead and for those of us surviving” (196-198). Creon is granted god-like powers! Speaking for the people, here, the chorus shows how tired of conflict and desiring of peace the citizens are. It changes its tune quickly enough, advising Creon to reconsider his plans, when it becomes clear that his tyranny is causing a clash that will bring instability to the state.

Antigone’s determination to bury her brother stems from love and honour in the face of an unnecessary and unjust edict from an autocratic ruler. Really, both Antigone’s and Creon’s positions are unnecessary: Burying Polyneices’ body will not bring him back (although in Ancient Greece such a burial was of importance) and if Creon were to show Polyneices and his kin some decency, his power would not be diminished in any significant way. As Teiresias says, lines 997-1001: “Yield to the dead man; do not stab him when he has fallen. What valour is there in killing the dead again? With good will towards you I give you good advice”.

Generally, Antigone appeals to the laws of the Gods; Creon to his rule (420); and Haemon to common sense. I wonder whether the Greeks would have agreed with Creon that the polis is of utmost importance? Undoubtedly it was, but so were family ties, family loyalties. Insofar as the burial is inconsequential to the state’s safety, my guess is that most Greeks would have sympathized with Antigone (fundamentally, with her point of view, but perhaps not with her as she is a stubborn woman).

There are parallels with Medea: Medea is a prideful woman and a barbarian to boot. For both reasons she is portrayed as a witch or a sorceress: “You are a clever woman, versed in evil arts…”, enforcing the belief that anything non-Athenian is barbaric, uncivilized and dangerous. These attitudes towards outsiders means that Medea becomes powerless in the face of losing her husband - she will be a single woman, without status and a barbarian in a foreign land. She has few options in expressing herself and goes to extremes to land the final punch, so to speak.

Creon’s misogynistic character remains the same in both plays; how ironic that his downfall is due to a woman. However, not to defend Creon too much, but it’s not hard to sympathize with him given his new powerful position, one that he has little experience with. Moreover, albeit too late, he does take ownership for his mistakes and his arguments are well-reasoned when looked at through his eyes.

Despite her pride and stubbornness, most of us sympathize with Antigone because of her undying love for her brother and harsh treatment by Creon (never mind that she says she’d sooner see her children or husband die, because her brother is irreplaceable - (875)). Antigone is driven to the point where the only thing she has control over is her own death. Displaying that she chooses death, she follows this path proudly, she owns it. Her pride will not have it any other way.
I wonder if the sympathies were as clear-cut then (one way or another) as they are today, and if so, in whose favour - Creon’s or Antigone’s? Creon says that he cannot submit to a woman - would most Greeks have agreed with him? Is Euripides exaggerating the point that females lack the reason possessed by males and therefore are capable of anything?

Now that Mencius is fresh in my mind, I picture him in the Ancient Greek audience, thoughtfully stroking a fu manchu, appreciating Sophocles for entirely supporting his point that a ruler's kindness can go a long way for the people, not to mention for the ruler himself. The tragedy Antigone would not have been had benevolence been Creon’s standard. The following lines also ring true to Mencius’ philosophy: “The mighty words of overproud men / With mighty blows are punished, / And, with old age, teach wisdom”, as well as, “You foul creature, lower than a woman!” (693)

“As for a man who considers someone he loves to be more important than his country, I say that he is nothing.” As mentioned, although this kind of macho-talk might be what the people want to hear, what does it say about Creon’s attitude? A state where Might is Right is a failed state; at least a ruler who acts in this way will fall hard. The clannish mindset is apparent in the “civilized” Creon, who partially justifies his decision based on Antigone’s lineage. Her fate is tied up with her father’s (Oedipus’) actions. “It is clear the girl is the violent child of a violent father” (Chorus, 433).

“When he combines the laws of his country / with the justice of the gods he is sworn to / his city stands tall.” The laws of country and the laws of the gods do not always mesh with human desires. Again, our desires are not necessarily consistent with living in a society. In a showdown between Creon’s ego and the gods, Creon seems to have a chance to concede his position and obey the will of the gods when Teiresias warns him (992-1001), “So think about this, my son. Mistakes are common to all men; but when a man makes a mistake, he is not foolish or doomed to failure if, after falling into trouble he finds the remedy, instead of remaining obdurate. Stubbornness brings the charge of stupidity. Yield to the dead man; do not stab him when he has fallen. What valour is there in killing the dead again? With good will towards you I give you good advice. Nothing is sweeter than learning from one who speaks well, if he speaks to your advantage”. Immediately after this Creon insults Teiresias and at that point is condemned; there is not turning back for Creon.

Antigone is silent, defiant, when first brought in and accused in front of Creon. Her returning to the corpse a second time is in protest against Creon’s inflexible rule. Recall her line (line 426-429), “But if I die before my time, then I call that a gain; for someone who lives in the midst of evils as I do, how could it not be advantageous to die? So for me to meet this fate is no pain at all. But if I had allowed the dead son of my mother to remain unburied, then I would have suffered.”

637 - Haemon pleading with his father to tap into the “wisdom planted [within him] by the gods” and hints at the blindness and stupidity of obstinacy. He even mentions that the citizens agree with Antigone’s actions! In many ways, Creon is given many hints to address his pigheadedness and change for the greater good. 659-669 provides nice metaphors of the natural “bending” in nature and how one can remain in tact while still going with the flow. This is reminiscent of Mencius.

Medea is between a rock and a hard place, in a no-win situation. Living in xenophobic Athens, her role in society is unstable with or without Jason. One’s source of morality comes in large part from the society in which one lives in and identifies with. Medea has no long-standing ties with Athens and she cannot return to her native land (moreover, her native land is populated with rough savages, remember!) Did Sophocles write this story because he could sense Athens’ xenophobia growing (literally, as Xenophon was 12 years old at the time of Antigone’s writing)?

I also took the sentry’s role in Antigone as social commentary by Sophocles. “It is most sweet to get yourself out of trouble, but painful to cause trouble for people you care for. But all that matters less to me than my own safety.” The sentry, a common man, speaks the voice of the average citizen. The above lines (405-7) outline the individualistic and selfish philosophy of mind that results under authoritarian rule. Now, if everyone were to think this way (recall Mencius - if everyone were to think in terms of “profit”) what would become of society as a whole? Answer: A society controlled by fear. Lines 462-5 intimate at the citizens’ hesitation of speaking up for what is right.

The tutor at the beginning of Medea states similar beliefs: “What’s strange in that? Have you only just discovered that everyone loves himself more than his neighbour? Some have good reason, others get something out of it. So Jason neglects his children for the new bride.”

The more I reflect on the themes of this course, one that recurs is that of humans being beyond nature, the victims of the gift of reason, given them by the “gods”. Reason somehow grants us the freedom of will and as a result we can act in ways that are discordant with the rest of nature. Antigone, an appropriate title to describe our present grappling with these primal, ancient issues: indeed, these problems are anything but gone, (or, “anti-gone”). We are shackled by this, in constant struggle. To this day, we seek guidance to find how we can sing in our chains.