Essay on topical issues and contemporary subjects

¶ … Ancient Text Explains or Demonstrates the Way to Live a Good Life

Notions of goodness as virtue rewarded and evil punished first came into vogue during the Christian era, in which a Kingdom of God was envisioned, where the righteous would enjoy the gifts they were denied in the imperfect, sinful world. However, in the pre-Christian era, notions of goodness were far harsher and less easily conceptualized in such black and white ideology. In Sophocles' dramatic tragedy of "Antigone" for example, the heroine is born to a cursed father, Oedipus, and her life is essentially doomed from her birth. Her father is also her brother, and her actual brothers commit fratricide against one another, as one dies fighting for the city of Thebes and the other dies rebelling against the city. The new king of Thebes Creon, Antigone's uncle, forbids anyone to bury her traitorous brother Polynices and it is Antigone's obligation as a good citizen to obey the king. However, as a sister she is morally bound to bury her brother so he can be judged correctly in the underworld.

Antigone's two roles are in conflict, as sister and citizen. In some ways of looking at the world in moral terms, such as the Christian example of martyrdom, Antigone's higher obligation to the gods would be clear. However, according to the Chorus that represents the city of Thebes, Antigone also shows signs of pride, or hubris, because of her uncompromising attitude. Her more timid sister Ismene refuses to bury her brother and when Ismene tries to claim credit and blame with her sister in public for burying Polynices, Antigone brutally rebukes Ismene. The play suggests that Creon creates a social world, in which it is impossible to be perfectly good, to honor one's familial and civic obligations. Ultimately piety must triumph over the will of men, but Antigone is not seen as perfect in her decision-making or her moral authority.

Antigone may be 'better' than Creon, in other words, but she is not necessarily 'good.' A good life is not necessarily pleasurable, nor does it produce rewards for the individual. Of course, it might be surmised that Antigone has a happier life after she dies. But the Greek conception of the afterlife, even for heroes, was hardly pleasurable. In the "Odyssey" Achilles says to Odysseus, that it is better to be a living dog than honored in Hades.

Submission to fate is ultimately what the Greeks seem to honor as a 'good' attitude. Oedipus the King finally accepts his cursed status, rather than fleeing from it, and from the beginning of her life, Antigone seems to anticipate that she will meet with an unhappy end. Although she is betrothed to marry, she does not seem to see her future as a married woman as an obligation that supersedes her obligation as a sister, and even says that because she can only have one brother, unlike a husband; obligations to the family come before everything. The play seems to suggest that this is valid, given the wrath that falls upon Creon's head. But evil also falls upon the heads of the innocent, because of the actions of the guilty, again showing that being good is no sure cause of happiness on earth. Antigone must suffer because she is the child of Oedipus, Oedipus had to suffer because of the fate that was dealt out to him by the gods, and Creon's wife Eurydice as well as Antigone's betrothed husband Haemon suffers, so the will of the gods can be vented upon Creon's head.