Antigone (Sophocles play)

• Antigone, compared with her beautiful and docile sister, is portrayed as a heroine who recognizes her familial duty. Her dialogues with Ismene reveal her to be as stubborn as her uncle.[4] In her, the ideal of the female character is boldly outlined.[5] She defies Creon's decree despite the consequences she may face, in order to honor her deceased brother.
• Ismene serves as a foil for Antigone, presenting the contrast in their respective responses to the royal decree.[4] Considered the beautiful one, she is more lawful and obedient to authority. She hesitates to bury Polynices because she fears Creon.
• Creon is the current King of Thebes, who views law as the guarantor of personal happiness. He can also be seen as a tragic hero, losing everything for upholding what he believes is right. Even when he is forced to amend his decree to please the gods, he first tends to the dead Polynices before releasing Antigone.[4]
• Eurydice of Thebes is the Queen of Thebes and Creon's wife. She appears towards the end and only to hear confirmation of her son Haemon's death. In her grief, she dies by suicide, cursing Creon, whom she blames for her son's death.
• Haemon is the son of Creon and Eurydice, betrothed to Antigone. Proved to be more reasonable than Creon, he attempts to reason with his father for the sake of Antigone. However, when Creon refuses to listen to him, Haemon leaves angrily and shouts he will never see him again. He dies by suicide after finding Antigone dead.
• Koryphaios is the assistant to the King (Creon) and the leader of the Chorus. He is often interpreted as a close advisor to the King, and therefore a close family friend. This role is highlighted in the end when Creon chooses to listen to Koryphaios' advice.
• Tiresias is the blind prophet whose prediction brings about the eventual proper burial of Polynices. Portrayed as wise and full of reason, Tiresias attempts to warn Creon of his foolishness and tells him the gods are angry. He manages to convince Creon, but is too late to save the impetuous Antigone.
• The Chorus, a group of elderly Theban men, is at first deferential to the king.[5] Their purpose is to comment on the action in the play and add to the suspense and emotions, as well as connecting the story to myths. As the play progresses they counsel Creon to be more moderate. Their pleading persuades Creon to spare Ismene. They also advise Creon to take Tiresias's advice.

An important issue still debated regarding Sophocles' Antigone is the problem of the second burial. When she poured dust over her brother's body, Antigone completed the burial rituals and thus fulfilled her duty to him. Having been properly buried, Polynices' soul could proceed to the underworld whether or not the dust was removed from his body. However, Antigone went back after his body was uncovered and performed the ritual again, an act that seems to be completely unmotivated by anything other than a plot necessity so that she could be caught in the act of disobedience, leaving no doubt of her guilt. More than one commentator has suggested that it was the gods, not Antigone, who performed the first burial, citing both the guard's description of the scene and the chorus's observation.[15] It's possible, however, that Antigone not only wants her brother to have burial rites, but that she wants his body to stay buried. The guard states that after they found that someone covered Polynices' body with dirt, the birds and animals left the body alone (lines 257–258). But when the guards removed the dirt, then the birds and animals returned, and Tiresias emphasizes that birds and dogs have defiled the city's altars and hearths with the rotting flesh from Polynices' body; as a result of which the gods will no longer accept the peoples' sacrifices and prayers (lines 1015–1020). It's possible, therefore, that after the guards remove the dirt protecting the body, Antigone buries him again to prevent the offense to the gods.[16] Even though Antigone has already performed the burial rite for Polynices, Creon, on the advice of Tiresias (lines 1023–1030), makes a complete and permanent burial for his body.

Richard C. Jebb suggests that the only reason for Antigone's return to the burial site is that the first time she forgot the Choaí (libations), and "perhaps the rite was considered completed only if the Choaí were poured while the dust still covered the corpse."[17]

Gilbert Norwood explains Antigone's performance of the second burial in terms of her stubbornness. His argument says that had Antigone not been so obsessed with the idea of keeping her brother covered, none of the deaths of the play would have happened. This argument states that if nothing had happened, nothing would have happened, and does not take much of a stand in explaining why Antigone returned for the second burial when the first would have fulfilled her religious obligation, regardless of how stubborn she was. This leaves that she acted only in passionate defiance of Creon and respect to her brother's earthly vessel.[18]

Tycho von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff justifies the need for the second burial by comparing Sophocles' Antigone to a theoretical version where Antigone is apprehended during the first burial. In this situation, news of the illegal burial and Antigone's arrest would arrive at the same time and there would be no period of time in which Antigone's defiance and victory could be appreciated.

J. L. Rose maintains that the problem of the second burial is solved by close examination of Antigone as a tragic character. Being a tragic character, she is completely obsessed by one idea, and for her this is giving her brother his due respect in death and demonstrating her love for him and for what is right. When she sees her brother's body uncovered, therefore, she is overcome by emotion and acts impulsively to cover him again, with no regards to the necessity of the action or its consequences for her safety.[18]

Bonnie Honig uses the problem of the second burial as the basis for her claim that Ismene performs the first burial, and that her pseudo-confession before Creon is actually an honest admission of guilt.[19]

Antigone being captured and arrested for the burial of her brother, Polynices. Sébastien Norblin, 1825.

A well established theme in Antigone is the right of the individual to reject society's infringement on one's freedom to perform a personal obligation.[20] Antigone comments to Ismene, regarding Creon's edict, that "He has no right to keep me from my own."[21] Related to this theme is the question of whether Antigone's will to bury her brother is based on rational thought or instinct, a debate whose contributors include Goethe.[20]

The contrasting views of Creon and Antigone with regard to laws higher than those of state inform their different conclusions about civil disobedience. Creon demands obedience to the law above all else, right or wrong. He says that "there is nothing worse than disobedience to authority" (An. 671). Antigone responds with the idea that state law is not absolute, and that it can be broken in civil disobedience in extreme cases, such as honoring the gods, whose rule and authority outweigh Creon's.

Creon's decree to leave Polynices unburied in itself makes a bold statement about what it means to be a citizen, and what constitutes abdication of citizenship. It was the firmly kept custom of the Greeks that each city was responsible for the burial of its citizens. Herodotus discussed how members of each city would collect their own dead after a large battle to bury them.[22] In Antigone, it is therefore natural that the people of Thebes did not bury the Argives, but very striking that Creon prohibited the burial of Polynices. Since he is a citizen of Thebes, it would have been natural for the Thebans to bury him. Creon is telling his people that Polynices has distanced himself from them, and that they are prohibited from treating him as a fellow-citizen and burying him as is the custom for citizens.

In prohibiting the people of Thebes from burying Polynices, Creon is essentially placing him on the level of the other attackers—the foreign Argives. For Creon, the fact that Polynices has attacked the city effectively revokes his citizenship and makes him a foreigner. As defined by this decree, citizenship is based on loyalty. It is revoked when Polynices commits what in Creon's eyes amounts to treason. When pitted against Antigone's view, this understanding of citizenship creates a new axis of conflict. Antigone does not deny that Polynices has betrayed the state, she simply acts as if this betrayal does not rob him of the connection that he would have otherwise had with the city. Creon, on the other hand, believes that citizenship is a contract; it is not absolute or inalienable, and can be lost in certain circumstances. These two opposing views – that citizenship is absolute and undeniable and alternatively that citizenship is based on certain behavior – are known respectively as citizenship 'by nature' and citizenship 'by law.'[22]

Antigone's determination to bury Polynices arises from a desire to bring honor to her family, and to honor the higher law of the gods. She repeatedly declares that she must act to please "those that are dead" (An. 77), because they hold more weight than any ruler, that is the weight of divine law. In the opening scene, she makes an emotional appeal to her sister Ismene saying that they must protect their brother out of sisterly love, even if he did betray their state. Antigone believes that there are rights that are inalienable because they come from the highest authority, or authority itself, that is the divine law.

While he rejects Antigone's actions based on family honor, Creon appears to value family himself. When talking to Haemon, Creon demands of him not only obedience as a citizen, but also as a son. Creon says "everything else shall be second to your father's decision" ("An." 640–641). His emphasis on being Haemon's father rather than his king may seem odd, especially in light of the fact that Creon elsewhere advocates obedience to the state above all else. It is not clear how he would personally handle these two values in conflict, but it is a moot point in the play, for, as absolute ruler of Thebes, Creon is the state, and the state is Creon. It is clear how he feels about these two values in conflict when encountered in another person, Antigone: loyalty to the state comes before family fealty, and he sentences her to death.

In Antigone as well as the other Theban Plays, there are very few references to the gods. Hades is the god who is most commonly referred to, but he is referred to more as a personification of Death. Zeus is referenced a total of 13 times by name in the entire play, and Apollo is referenced only as a personification of prophecy. This lack of mention portrays the tragic events that occur as the result of human error, and not divine intervention. The gods are portrayed as chthonic, as near the beginning there is a reference to "Justice who dwells with the gods beneath the earth." Sophocles references Olympus twice in Antigone. This contrasts with the other Athenian tragedians, who reference Olympus often.

Antigone's love for family is shown when she buries her brother, Polynices. Haemon was deeply in love with his cousin and fiancée Antigone, and he killed himself in grief when he found out that his beloved Antigone had hanged herself.

Following in the Aristotelian tradition, Antigone is also seen as a case-study for equity. Catharine Titi has likened Antigone's 'divine' law to modern peremptory norms of customary international law (ius cogens) and she has discussed Antigone's dilemma as a situation that invites the application of equity contra legem in order to correct the law.[23]

• Felix Mendelssohn composed a suite of incidental music for Ludwig Tieck's staging of the play in 1841. It includes an overture and seven choruses.
• Walter Hasenclever wrote an adaptation in 1917, inspired by the events of World War I.
• Jean Cocteau created an adaptation of Sophocles' Antigone at Théâtre de l'Atelier in Paris on December 22, 1922.
• French playwright Jean Anouilh's tragedy Antigone was inspired by both Sophocles' play and the myth itself. Anouilh's play premièred in Paris at the Théâtre de l'Atelier in February 1944, during the Nazi occupation of France.
• Right after World War II, Bertolt Brecht composed an adaptation, Antigone, which was based on a translation by Friedrich Hölderlin and was published under the title Antigonemodell 1948.
• The Haitian writer and playwright Félix Morisseau-Leroy translated and adapted Antigone into Haitian Creole under the title, Antigòn (1953). Antigòn is noteworthy in its attempts to insert the lived religious experience of many Haitians into the content of the play through the introduction of several Loa from the pantheon of Haitian Vodou as voiced entities throughout the performance.
• Antigone inspired the 1967 Spanish-language novel La tumba de Antígona (English title: Antigone's Tomb) by María Zambrano.
• Puerto Rican playwright Luis Rafael Sánchez's 1968 play La Pasión según Antígona Pérez sets Sophocles' play in a contemporary world where Creon is the dictator of a fictional Latin American nation, and Antígona and her 'brothers' are dissident freedom fighters.
• The Island, a 1973 apartheid-era play by the South African playwrights Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Nthsona, features two cellmates who rehearse and ultimately perform Antigone for the other prisoners, drawing parallels between Antigone herself and black political prisoners held in Robben Island prison.
• In 1977, Antigone was translated into Papiamento for an Aruban production by director Burny Every together with Pedro Velásquez and Ramon Todd Dandaré. This translation retains the original iambic verse by Sophocles.
• Antigona Furiosa, written in the period of 1985-86 by Griselda Gambaro, is an Argentinian drama heavily influenced by Antigone by Sophocles, and comments on an era of government terrorism that later transformed into the Dirty War of Argentina.
• In 2004, theatre companies Crossing Jamaica Avenue and The Women's Project in New York City co-produced the Antigone Project written by Tanya Barfield, Karen Hartman, Chiori Miyagawa, Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage and Caridad Svich, a five-part response to Sophocles' text and to the US Patriot Act. The text was published by NoPassport Press as a single edition in 2009 with introductions by classics scholar Marianne McDonald and playwright Lisa Schlesinger.
• Bangladeshi director Tanvir Mokammel in his 2008 film Rabeya (The Sister) also draws inspiration from Antigone to parallel the story to the martyrs of the 1971 Bangladeshi Liberation War who were denied a proper burial.[24]
• In 2000, Peruvian theatre group Yuyachkani and poet José Watanabe adapted the play into a one-actor piece that remains as part of the group's repertoire.[25]
• An Iranian absurdist adaptation of Antigone was written and directed by Homayoun Ghanizadeh and staged at the City Theatre in Tehran in 2011.[26]
• In 2012, the Royal National Theatre adapted Antigone to modern times. Directed by Polly Findlay,[27] the production transformed the dead Polynices into a terrorist threat and Antigone into a "dangerous subversive."[28]
• Roy Williams's 2014 adaptation of Antigone for the Pilot Theatre relocates the setting to contemporary street culture.[29]
• Syrian playwright Mohammad Al-Attar adapted Antigone for a 2014 production at Beirut, performed by Syrian refugee women.[30]
• Antigone in Ferguson is an adaptation conceived in the wake of the shooting of Michael Brown by police in 2014, through a collaboration between Theater of War Productions and community members from Ferguson, Missouri. Translated and directed by Theater of War Productions Artistic Director Bryan Doerries and composed by Phil Woodmore.[31]
• Elena Carapetis' rewritten version, described as a response to the original, portrays a feminist theme. It was produced by the State Theatre Company of South Australia in Adelaide in June 2022, directed by Anthony Nicola.[32]

• Antigone, opera by Arthur Honegger, premiered on December 28, 1927 at Théâtre de la Monnaie in Bruxelles.
• Antigonae, opera by Carl Orff, a Literaturoper, which uses Friedrich Hölderlin's translation of Sophokles' drama (1805), premiered on August 8, 1949 at the Felsenreitschule in the context of Salzburg Festival.
• Antigone (1977) by Dinos Constantinides, on an English libretto by Fitts and Fitzgerald
• Antigone (1986) by Marjorie S. Merryman
• Antigone oder die Stadt (1988) by Georg Katzer with a libretto by Gerhard Müller, premiered at the Komische Oper Berlin in 1991, staged by Harry Kupfer and conducted by Jörg-Peter Weigle
• The Burial at Thebes (2007–2008) by Dominique Le Gendre and libretto by Seamus Heaney, based on his translation for spoken theatre. The production features conductor William Lumpkin, stage director Jim Petosa, and six singers and ten instrumentalists.[33]

In 2017 Kamila Shamsie published Home Fire, which transposes some of the moral and political questions in Antigone into the context of Islam, ISIS and modern-day Britain.

George Tzavellas adapted the play into a 1961 film, which he also directed. It featured Irene Papas as Antigone.

Liliana Cavani's 1970 I Cannibali is a contemporary political fantasy based upon the Sophocles play, with Britt Ekland as Antigone and Pierre Clémenti as Tiresias.

The 1978 omnibus film Germany in Autumn features a segment by Heinrich Böll entitled "The Deferred Antigone"[34] where a fictional production of Antigone is presented to television executives who reject it as "too topical".[35]

A 2019 Canadian film adaption transposed the story into one of a modern day immigrant family in Montreal. It was adapted and directed by Sophie Deraspe, with additional inspiration from the Death of Fredy Villanueva. Antigone was played by Nahéma Ricci.

Vittorio Cottafavi directed two television productions of the play, in 1958 for RAI Radiotelevisione Italiana and in 1971 for Rai 1. Valentina Fortunato and Adriana Asti, respectively, performed the title role.

It was filmed for Australian TV in 1966.

In 1986, Juliet Stevenson starred as Antigone, with John Shrapnel as Creon and John Gielgud as Tiresias in the BBC's The Theban Plays.

Antigone at the Barbican was a 2015 filmed-for-TV version of a production at the Barbican directed by Ivo van Hove; the translation was by Anne Carson and the film starred Juliette Binoche as Antigone and Patrick O'Kane as Kreon.

Other TV adaptations of Antigone have starred Irene Worth (1949) and Dorothy Tutin (1959), both broadcast by the BBC.