The most famous tragedies of Sophocles “Antigone” and “Oedipus the King” have a great value in the world literature. A compositional unity of these tragedies, the means of characterization, and the dialogues of the heroes are the reasons of this value.
They are a source of inspiration of artists, musicians during all the times. The conflicts of the plays are filled with passions and sufferings of the main characters that embody an ideal of personality. They live their lives in constant struggle and at the end of the tragedies they remain victors because they realize their deeds.In spite of the unlimited power of gods Sophocles values a man who acts consciously and who are ready to give a response to his actions most of all.
He describes a person with dignity, a person that everyone should be. Oedipus and Creon At the beginning of the play Oedipus is described as a clever and generous ruler who takes care of his nation and is loved by it. Creon is another person. He has tyrannical qualities.
He is convinced that the state is his ownership and he can do all possible and impossible deeds.The development of these characters’ fates and changes of their personalities can’t but impress. Oedipus wants to know who killed the king and he doesn’t stop even when he begins to guess the truth. He lost the battle with gods but he is not defeated.
Oedipus finds his way to justice by making himself blind. This self-punishment happens because he blames himself that he was not able to see the truth. He also thinks that he is not deserving of seeing his parents, who were profaned by his crime.How could my eyes, when I went down into that black, sightless place beneath the earth, the place where the dead go down, how, how could I have looked at anything, with what human eyes could I have gazed on my father, on my mother-oh gods, my mother! What I did against those two not even strangling could punish. ” (Sophocles 1988) By this action he remains a majestic and a fundamental character. Creon’s nature is developing in another way.
He was also “blind” but only because of his own decision to neglect the laws. He understands that the punishment he obtained resulted from his conscious activity.In spite of the fact that Creon remains alive he seems to be spiritually dead. His guilt caused the hardest suffering. “Take me away, a poor fool.
I killed you both, son and wife. No, nowhere to look, not to lean, but slides from my hands. It leaps on me, it crushes. (Sophocles, 1989) The functions of chorus The songs of chorus play a significant role at these tragedies. With the help of chorus the dialogue between the character and the reader or the audience occurs. The author reveals his own thoughts and makes a conclusion by the songs: “Happiness and peace, they were not yours nless at death you can look back on your life and say I lived, I did not suffer.
” (Sophocles 1988)The songs of chorus are also necessary in order to understand the ideas and the main conflict. For example, at the beginning of “Antigone” chorus is singing about a man, his power and various talents. Stating that a man can everything, the chorus changes its mood and remembers that there is the thing that a man can’t overcome. It is the laws of gods and first of all the law of death that demands resignation and absolute respect. So, the chorus makes ready the further development of the action and the evaluation of the characters.Moral law versus human law; fate versus freewill.
In Sophokles' time the Greeks believed that the fate of an individual was bound up with one's daimon, a divinity who presides over the happiness or misery of that person's life. The Greek word for happiness, eudaimonia, literally meaning “well daimoned, ” suggests that a person so blessed is divinely and perhaps permanently protected. But a daimon could just as often devastate an individual or an entire family. In Oedipus the King the intimate and personal divinity who strikes Oedipus blow after deadly blow is a daimon – a kind of executioner who does Fate's bidding.I think that Oedipus can be called a victim of fate, because it was a real tragedy for him to find himself a murderer of his own father.
Oedipus’ destiny is the symbol of inconstancy of human happiness and limited nature of human knowledge. The main conflict of the “Antigone” is developing when Creon wants the Polinique’s body be hurled to dogs, because he betrayed his family. Antigone doesn’t agree with him and says that there is a duty of people who are alive to bury the body in a right way. When she is making devotions to his brother she is captured.
It was she who said to Creon that there are two types of laws: the moral ones – the laws of gods – and the human ones. She is sure that the first is the most important and she is eager to die in order to execute this law. But Creon is on the other side and his opinion consists in common subordination to the ruler, even if the ruler demands the actions which are unlawful. Sophocles denounces Creon and condemns him to punishment, because he ignored the laws of life and death. Creon looses his wife and son.
