Posted by Miguel Angel Balsa on April 06, 192003 at 13:48:27:
NOTES ON “ANTIGONE”
SOFOCLES’ “ANTIGONE”: Antigone’s story is but a part of a long tragic saga which began when the heroine’s great-grandfather, Labdacus, offended the gods. As a result, he and his descendants would face a tortuous fate...
Labdacus’ grandson, Oedipus, fought and killed King Laius of Thebes and then married the widowed Queen Iocasta. Some time afterwards, King Oedipus found out that Laius had been his own father--and that his wife Iocasta was in fact his own mother. Confronted with unbearable guilt, Iocasta killed herself and Oedipus took out his own eyes and left Thebes, forever roaming away from the city. Behind them remained their four children--two girls, Antigone and Ismene, and two boys, Polynices and Eteocles. Since Oedipus’s sons were too young to reign, it was prince Creon, Iocastas’ brother who became regent of the city. When Eteocles and Polynices came of age, they agreed--on Creon’s advice--that they would take turns to rule over Thebes. However, when it was time for Polynices to occupy the throne, Eteocles refused to keep his word; in response, Polynices gathered an army of men from the rival city of Argos and led them against Thebes. The two brothers ended up killing each other on the battlefield, and Creon thus emerged as the new king of Thebes.
This is the point when Sofocles’ “Antigone” begins. As a punishment for Polynices’ “treason,” Creon declares that his corpse must be abandoned outside of the city walls, where it will be torn to pieces and devoured by dogs and birds of prey. Anyone who attempts to bury the body, the king states in a decree, will face death penalty. Despite Creon’s edict, Antigone believes that she must render due homage to her brother’s memory and act in accordance with divine commandments: she must bury Polynices at any rate. She therefore asks her sister Ismene to help her do so; but Ismene is too fearful to act against Creon’s will and refuses to follow her sister.
When night falls, Antigone performs the ritual ablutions and covers Polynices’ body with earth, as prescribed by the divine laws. The next morning, the sentries in charge of watching the corpse report to Creon on the unlawful event, and the outraged king commands that the body be exposed again. Once again, Antigone performs the burial rites, this time in broad daylight. The sentinels discover her, and she is taken before the king. Antigone insists that she is guilty only according to Creon’s edict but innocent according to the gods’ laws. Infuriated by Antigone’s adamant stance and despite popular opinion, Creon sentences her to be locked up in a small cave until she dies.
Haemon, Creon’s son and Antigone’s husband-to-be, invokes his father’s mercy, but the king pays no heed to him. Soon afterwards, it is Teiresias the diviner who appears before Creon and states that Antigone’s doom is unjust: she was forced to decide between complying with two different laws, that of men and that of the gods, and she chose to obey the gods. However, Creon insists that everyone must abide by his rules. Before he is taken away from the king’s presence, Teiresias warns him that the gods may very well punish him for his impious arrogance... The diviner’s words echo in Creon’s mind: he remembers how Labdacus offended the gods and elicited their fury. Finally, Creon decides that Antigone be released from her tomb. But it is already too late: the king learns that Antigone has died; that Haemon has killed himself out of despair; and that Queen Eurydice, Haemon’s mother, has also taken her own life after cursing Creon for the disgrace he has brought to his own household. In the final scene, Creon finds himself “dissolved in an agony of misery” and tortured by remorse:
“Lead me away, a vain silly man
who killed you, son, and you too, lady.
I did not mean to, but I did.
I do not know where to turn my eyes
to look to, for support.
Everything in my hands is crossed. A most unwelcome fate
has leaped upon me.”
In José Watanabe’s poems, the narrator identifies herself with Ismene--the survivor, the witness. Ismene/the narrator is the only one who can tell her family’s tragic story. Through remembrance, she is the only one who can carry out Antigone’s legitimate will to grant Polynices a grave, that is to say, a place in the collective memory. “Burying” Polynices is to assert that his life was meaningful and valuable; it is to preserve his life and his voice. Interestingly enough, for Antigone oblivion and memory are inextricably connected:
“Quiero que toda muerte tenga funeral
y después,
después,
después
olvido.”
“I want all the dead to have a funeral
and then,
after that,
after that
forgetfulness.”
Antigone knows that it is impossible to forget without remembrance--one cannot forget what has not been previously remembered. Antigone knows that forgetfulness is a natural, slow, gradual process of assimilation through collective memory/history rather than a process of sheer erasure. Antigone knows that forgetting means coming to terms with the past, and that therefore oblivion cannot be imposed. What Antigone is claiming is precisely the right to forget--which is possible only if and when memories exist.
Antigone emerges as a figure who opposes power as a boundless, uncontrollable force which imposes its will upon the citizens. She symbolizes not simply the possibility, but also the obligation to confront power’s essential tendency to go beyond its own limits--Antigone’s stance is one of opposition to Creon’s attempt to extend his power not only over his subjects’ physical existence, but over their symbolic lives as well. Antigone’s message is one of resistance against power’s tendency to dehumanize its subjects by erasing their life--that is, their memory.