Oedipus Rex Vs. Antigone

Daniel Nierenberg                                                               Comparative Essay 11-20-01                                                               Oedipus Rex & Antigone It is only natural that an author wasting disease alike vessels of literature, such as figurative language, literary gubbinss, and elements in his/her work. It is in time more appargonnt between works that are connected by character, time, and theme. Sophocles did this when he wrote Oedipus Rex and Antigone. When comparing the two pieces, it be summons manifest(a) that very similar vessels connected these very different plays.

        Sophocles uses a specific type of figurative language in twain pieces sockn as hamartia. Hamartia is a characters flaw. The flaw a lot leads to a major downf all(prenominal) by its owner. In two Oedipus Rex and Antigone, there are three reoccurring hamartias: hubris, irrationality, and unyielding self-will. When spea ability of hubris, the characters Oedipus and Antigone come to mind. Hubris is pride or an extreme sense of self-admiration. Oedipus is quoted saying such things as, I, Oedipus, who all men call great. His hubris clouds his vision and pr level offts him from check into things as they are. Oedipus takes on the act of finding out who the liquidator of the king is but when all the evidence points to him, he can non name it because of his arrogance. Antigone, Oedipus daughter, has the same character flaw. She is arrogant and as power empty-bellied as Oedipus was. She decides to go against Creons decry and bury her traitorous brother. Antigone believes herself to be so high above others, she even says shes above the king himself. Creon is not strong enough to stand in my focusing. It appears that Antigone wants to bury her brother so she can incur a martyr. She tells her sister, Ismene, not to help her so she can reward all the credit of defying the king and doing what is religiously right.

        Irrationality is evident in both works as swell. We soak up it maiden with Oedipus. We come up him not listening to or acting according to effort. Oedipus blames Creon for the butcher because Creon was the one who recomm demiseed Teriesias to Oedipus. When Teriesias began to say things to Oedipus that he didnt like, he assumed that Creon told the prognosticator to say these things. We also see it at the end when the fairness finally hits the sad hotshot. He rushes into the castle looking for Jocasta and rips [the doors] get by dint of the hinges.

        In Antigone, Creon contains the most irrationality. When he is talking with his son, Haimon, he says he is going to punish both Antigone and Ismene. alone Ismene never did anything to run short Creons law. A huge parallelism between Oedipus and Creon is their scenes with Teriesias. Creon gets as exercise set out of shape as Oedipus, mainly because he does not want to hear what is in store for him.

The third hamartia is unyielding stubbornness. Once again Oedipus shows up as a prime candidate. As stated before, he respectable doesnt stupefy all the clues together to find he murdered the king. Jocasta even says, In form you look like Laius. Even when everyone has evaluate it out, Oedipus turns to the newly horrified Jocasta and recites the line that say something to degree of dont worry, I may be a slave but you exit not be affected. This statement punctuates his stubbornness simply because he is the last character to figure it out.

        Creon best shows the unyielding stubbornness in Antigone. He refuses to allow Antigone to love no affaire what happens, simply because he doesnt want to go against what he said. Haimon tries to reason with Creon by telling him that its ok if he changes his mind. He goes on to say that the people believe Antigone did what she had to do and that they are shocked of the kings temper. After all this Creon still wont change his mind. In receipt to this unyielding temperament, Haimon says that he will take his own lifetime if Antigone died. And yet Creon still doesnt change.

        One major literary device Sophocles used to tie the different play together was sins of the male parent. oft times when a tragic hero reaches his/her catharsis, if their doings induce been so terrible, they will curse their line so that the repulsiveness will stop. In Oedipus Rex, Oedipus, once he finds that that he has killed his father and, the king, and has entered the bed of his own mother, he curses his four children. ¦to waste forth in barrenness, unmarried. Sophocles followed through with the curse in Antigone. We see that Oedipus line ends in this piece. Ismene, the youngest daughter, is so traumatized by the events in Oedipus Rex that she becomes a priestess and therefore will never have children. The two sons, Polyneices and Eteocles, lace up dying at the hands of one other in a great civil war. As for Antigone, her last is the worst of all. Although in Antigone, Sophocles establishes a relationship between Haimon and Antigone, Antigone pays the crowning(prenominal) price for trying to bury her brother. One cannot ignore that decomposeicular that Creon was Oedipus uncle/brother. Therefore it is safe to assume that with the death of Haimon, there is no hope for even the slightest bit of Oedipus blood to be passed on. And thus, the cycles/second of sins of the father is comp permite.

        Sophocles plays each have a noble/tragic hero as the main character. The definition of a tragic hero, according to Aristotle, is a man who is neither good nor bad, whose ill luck arises from frailty or error. They must be prosperous and well known. The tragic hero must fall in attend of our eyes.



The hero must start off high, fall, and at the end rise up higher than before. A noble hero is the same except he/she does not have as many flaws as the tragic hero.

        Oedipus was, of course, a tragic hero. Sophocles world-class describes him as a good and just king. Oedipus saves them from the Sphinx by resoluteness the riddle. When he first takes on the mission to find the sea wolf and purge the land of the plague, he tells Creon to let the people know of the information he has found. But promptly before our eyes, we see Oedipus hamartias shine brighter that those good qualities in the beginning. He soon travel to a level foreshadowed and hinted throughout the work, whereupon after his anagnorisis, or awakening, comes to his catharsis. He purges his guilt by dashing out his eyes, following through with his curse of banishment, apologizes to Creon, and curses his children. Through this he gains humility, loses his hubris, and even though he blinds himself, he winds up visual perception more than more seeing people.

        The tragic hero in Antigone is indubitably Creon. Like his nephew/brother, Creon has become the king and the reader remembers his good nature from the previous work. But like Oedipus, he falls before like a child taking his first steps. What makes Sophocles pieces more interesting is that he falls because of the exact same hamartias as Oedipus. The author even repeats some of the dialogue as if he was trying to emphasize the parallelism between the two. The reader/audience member is introduced to Creons proneness for power in Antigone. This thirst was non-existent is Oedipus Rex. Until Creon became king, he had no political ambitions. He even stated that he liked the earliest triumverant because he reaped the benefits without the hassle and responsibility. In Antigone, Creon refuses to bend his word and let Antigone live. Creons anagnorisis occurs much faster than Oedipus did. The Chorus tries to reason with Creon telling him that Teriesias force be old but he has never been wrong. Creon quickly realizes this and decides to push away his pride and let Antigone live. As part of Creons catharsis, he loses the lives of Antigone, his son, and his wife. By the time Creon had got to Antigones tomb, she had already hung herself. Haimon, who was weeping at her body, decides to take his life if he couldnt be with Antigone in this world. When Haimons mother, Eurydice, learns of his death, she hangs herself just as Jocasta did in Oedipus Rex. Once all this is made apparent to Creon, he declares that he never wants to see the light of the sunbathe and is lead away just as Oedipus is in the first work.

Oedipus Rex and Antigone are enhanced by Sophocles use of such similar techniques in such different, but connected plays.

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