Antigone, Odyssey Greek Value Systems

Antigone, Odyssey

Greek value systems in Sophocles' "Antigone" and Homer's "Odyssey": The dangers of pride, the moral value of clever lies

Pride, or to use the Greek word for pride "hubris" always comes before the fall of a great leader or warrior. In the case of Odysseus, the hero of the "Odyssey" only redeems himself from the arrogance of injuring the Cyclops by his virtues, including as his cleverness, his willingness to protect his crew, and his loyalty to his even more loyal wife Penelope over the course of his long wanderings. Thus, the Greek lives and is restored to his kingdom, despite his trickery and despite the fact he often enrages the gods through his flouting of correct moral behavior. After all, this is the Greek warrior who invented the concept of the Trojan horse.

In contrast, King Creon of Sophocles play "Antigone" has no such redeeming virtues to mitigate the pride he exhibits when he refuses to allow Antigone's brother to be buried properly, with common human, to say nothing of common kingly, decency. In doing so, Creon usurps the right of the gods to judge all of humanity in the underworld. Rather he attempts to give himself godlike authority in the transient world of humankind upon the earth's surface. He refuses to allow the warrior's soul to make its final passage, and forces it to remain upon earth, tormented and lost. Moreover, the king of Thebes acts to punish Antigone, the grieving sister who wishes to do her duty by her brother, with death, a death she does not deserve and thus he has no right to mete out upon her. So Creon loses his son, a young man who loves and is betrothed to Antigone, as a result of the process of Creon's arrogant series of poor judgments, as he ignores the portents of the gods and the words of the blind prophet Tiersias.

However, although Antigone emerges, as a more sympathetic character than does Creon, there is a sense that her love and loyalty for a sibling may be a little bit too overly focused on familial, rather than state loyalty. Ultimately, Sophocles advocates an internal moral balance between the loyalty an individual shows to the state and loyalty he or she shows to the family. After all, Antigone's brother did enact a bloody rebellion -- against his own brother as well as upon the city's loyal leadership. Moreover, the dangers of familial ties binding too closely is evident in Antigone's own parental legacy, as she is the daughter of a man named Oedipus whom accidentally married his own mother.

Penelope in "The Odyssey" similarly exhibits the value of familial loyalty in her actions. But her loyalty is not to her father or brother, but to her husband, thus it is viewed more charitably in the ancient Greek system of values. Also, her actions protect the state, as she prevents a wrongful king coming to power by refusing to remarry immediately, after her husband is suspected to be dead. Interestingly enough, Penelope manifests her supreme value of loyalty through her use of mendacity, as she unweaves her web every night. Penelope, at the beginning of the epic poem the "Odyssey," has promised the suitors demanding her hand in marriage and leadership over her husband's kingdom, that she will chose one of them only after she finishes weaving her piecework -- hence her nightly undoing of her weaving. Eventually, this ruse is discovered, but the cleverness that Penelope's lies demonstrate, as well as the lies her husband frequently tells to extricate himself from many an escapade over the course of the "Odyssey," that honesty for no purpose was not a value held high by the ancient Greeks. Cleverness was better than honesty.

Indeed, Antigone's honesty does not spare her life, and she is cruelly honest in public to her sister, who attempts to take credit for the illegal burial, even though the other girl had no part of it. Humility thus, in the face of the gods is valued, and to a lesser extent that of the state, but honesty was not. In the Greek system of values, there was great importance attached to valor even if it costs the individual his or her life. But valor must also supported by a real and lasting loyalty to an organization of family or military and political authority of legitimacy, thus valor alone or valor and honesty shown to an unbalanced system of values, as in "Antigone" brings death to he or she who would arrogantly brandish it in public as an individual virtue.