Justice, Crime, and Hubris in Antigone and Oedipus the King

Introduction: Shared Themes in Two Sophoclean Tragedies

Sophocles' plays Antigone and Oedipus the King form the first two parts of a trilogy of tragic plays. Because of their interconnected plots, the two dramas share much in common in terms of themes and characterization. For example, Creon appears in both, although he is by far a more significant character in Antigone, a play centered on him and the title character. In Oedipus the King, Creon is a secondary character who nonetheless receives the brunt of Oedipus' rage. As kings and powerful rulers, both figures demonstrate similar personality traits and roles. Creon and Oedipus both fall prey to the tragic flaw of hubris, which brings about their downfall in each play. However, in Antigone, Creon is able to redeem himself through a humble admission of his faults, whereas Oedipus gouges out his own eyes after the truth overwhelms him.

In both Antigone and Oedipus the King, justice and crime form central themes. In Antigone, the relatively minor crime of burying Polynices' body is weighed against the far graver crime of sentencing Antigone to death by burying her alive. Creon's intense and unrelenting authoritarianism makes him the unequivocal administrator of justice — a position he believes trumps even the authority of the gods. Antigone, on the other hand, represents a higher order of justice, one she holds to be ordained by the gods. For Antigone, failing to bury her brother constitutes a far harsher crime than disobeying the arbitrary laws of the state. Her courage and fortitude lead to her downfall but in no way diminish her dignity.

Oedipus is a very different tragic hero from Antigone. Oedipus the King is unusual in that the perpetrator of the crime is also the administrator of justice: Oedipus is responsible for bringing upon Thebes the plague that compels him to seek the truth — that he killed his own father and married his mother. In Oedipus the King, justice takes on a more sinister overtone than it does in Antigone, where justice and criminality are comparatively clear-cut.

Crime, Law, and Antigone's Defiance

Antigone and Oedipus the King share many elements, notably the influence of the blind prophet Tiresias and the setting of Thebes, a city that is plagued and cursed in both plays. Moreover, both plays deal with issues of power, authority, criminality, and justice, and both address the tragic flaw of pride overruling a ruler's sound judgment. However, the crimes at the center of the two plays are quite different. In Antigone, the title character's legal crime is acting against an edict delivered by the ruler of the land. Regardless of how she felt about the law forbidding the proper burial of her brother's body, Antigone technically should not have disobeyed Creon's orders. She could instead have confronted him, and had he refused, simply left the matter alone. Antigone chose instead to be stubborn and headstrong, and she buried her brother's body.

Moreover, she did so with the assistance of her sister Ismene, who thereby became a reluctant accomplice in the crime. Ismene would later be pardoned, but Antigone's decision to involve her sister in the act compounds the criminality of her choice. Nevertheless, the crime itself is relatively minor: she harms no one and is in fact following the law of custom, tradition, and religion — a law that Antigone places above any rule of the mundane world.

The Consequences of Antigone's Actions

Ironically, Antigone's suicide can be interpreted as a further violation of divine law, yet by that point she had already been sentenced to death. Her crime also sets in motion a chain of tragic deaths among those around her, including her fiancé and Creon's son Haemon, and subsequently Creon's wife Eurydice. The ripple effect of Antigone's defiance thus extends well beyond herself, underscoring one of the play's central concerns: that individual moral conviction, when placed against the power of the state, can yield catastrophic consequences for an entire household.

Conclusion: Pride, Justice, and the Tragic Hero

In some ways, Creon and Oedipus both act as criminals and prosecutors. Creon commits a crime against divine justice first by forbidding the proper burial of Polynices and then by harshly persecuting Antigone for wanting to honor her brother in accordance with tradition. One of the central messages of Antigone is therefore that divine justice trumps mundane law. Oedipus breaks divine law not so much by killing his father and marrying his mother — acts committed without knowledge — but by refusing to acknowledge the truth, to the detriment of himself and those around him. In the end, justice is served by the gods through the death of his wife and the persistence of the plague. The final word of Oedipus the King, therefore, has less to do with the supremacy of divine justice than with the destructive consequences of pride in the Greek tragic tradition.