Scott Gerike

Professor Bulliung

Paideia I

September 21, 2009

The Fight That Ended in Death

When Sophocles wrote Antigone, he included many conflicts that

helped set up the plot of the story. The main conflict is between Creon

and Antigone, but there are also many smaller conflicts that point the

story in the right direction. Although the conflict between Antigone and

Creon is important to the story, the conflict between Haemon and

Creon is the conflict that helped set up the climax of the play.

One of the reasons why the argument between Creon and

Haemon is more important to the story than the fight between Creon

and Antigone is because of all of the different topics that were touched

on during this discussion. The main thing that is touched on in the

disagreement between Creon and Antigone is the dispute between

whether the body should be buried or not. The only other major

dispute that they had was about the roles of the different genders in

society. During Creon and Haemon’s discussion they discuss more

important topics in less time than it took than Antigone and Creon’s

quarrel.

anything he says as law because a child is put on this earth just

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keep living out the parent’s same life after they have died. Creon

makes this clear when he declared that Haemon should “Accept your

father’s word as law in all things” (624). Disregarding this declaration

as Haemon did is seen as the height of disrespect for Creon, who

believes that if you do not agree with everything you are told, you are

disrespecting your elders. The biggest transgression committed by

Haemon is the fact that he did not believe that Antigone is guilty and

deserves to die.

Along with Haemon’s lack of obedience, Creon is repulsed by the

fact that he is not only being opposed, but that his son is siding with a

woman over his own father. He viewed this as a horrible offense,

exclaiming “How contemptible, to give way to a woman” (729)! It is

traumatizing for Creon to be reprimanded by a women as he is earlier

by Antigone, but having her arguments sustained by his son was even

worse. This defense of Antigone by Haemon and Creon’s reaction to it

is one of the big reasons that Haemon kills himself at the end of the

play.

Creon really started turning on Haemon when he starts accusing

Creon of being a blind ruler. When Haemon asks, “Would you stop

everyone from speaking but yourself,” Creon shows his true colors by

responding, “Indeed! I tell you, by the gods above us, you shall pay for

using such language to your father” (739-742). This argument with

Haemon is when Creon starts to turn into a ruler that is paranoid who
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will be defied and lose his power. Since this play has been written, this

trend has continued to occur toward the end of a totalitarian rule,

where the ruler becomes paranoid he is going to be overthrown. Due

to this paranoia, the ruler begins to trust no one; therefore leaving him

on an island that inevitably sinks as he loses his power.

During this argument, Haemon questions Creon’s ruling

principles because of the inconsistencies in how he said he was going

to rule and how he was ruling. When Creon first discussed how he was

going to rule, he was very positive about how he was going to maintain

control:

But you can never know what a man is made of, his
character or powers of intellect, until you have seen
him tried in rule and office. A man who holds the reins of
government and odes not follow the wisest policies but lets
something scare him from saying what he thinks, I hold
despicable, and always have done. Nor have I time for
anyone who puts his popularity before his country. As Zeus
the omnipotent will be my witness, if I saw our welfare
threatened; if I saw one danger-signal, I would speak my
mind, and never count an enemy of my country to be a
friend of mine. (169-182)

Throughout time though, Creon’s ideals have crumbled, leading this

argument to happening. The main point in this statement of ideals is

the fact that he said he would never put his popularity before his

ideals. Although it is not popularity but respect that he is searching for

by sentencing Antigone to death, he is still putting himself before his

country’s well being.

Another reason why the argument between Antigone and Creon

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is less important to the story than the one between Creon and Haemon

is because a big part of why Haemon kills himself at the end of the

play is because of the previous disagreement with his father. This is

evidenced by the fact that before he killed himself, Haemon spat in his

father’s face and then “drew his cross-hilted sword and thrust it at

him” (1167). Between the death of his betrothed and the hatred for his

father after their earlier fight, Haemon decides it is not worth living

anymore and killed himself.

Not only does this fight directly cause Haemon’s death, it also

has the indirect effect of Creon’s wife, Eurydice, committing suicide.

Eurydice’s death is also related to the infamous fight because the fight

caused Haemon to commit suicide, therefore causing Eurydice to kill

herself as well due to here son’s death. The messenger brings the

news of Eurydice’s death to Creon, and when he does, he says had

“called down a curse on you for murdering her sons” with her dying

breath (1232-33). The conflict also marks the start of the downfall for

Creon, which ends with him abdicating after Eurydice commits suicide.

The amount of deaths that result from this conflict as well as the

number of topics that are covered in the conflict cements the fact that

it was the most important conflict in Antigone. Creon sums up what is

caused by this argument at the end of the book by saying, “Come, take

this hot-headed fool away, a fool who killed you, my son, in blindness”

(1262-63) Sophocles really used all the conflicts very well to set up plot
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of the play, but he used the conflict between Creon and Haemon

especially well.

Works Cited

Sophocles, , and Peter D. Arnott. Oedipus the King and Antigone.

Wheeling, IL:

Harlan Davidson, Inc, 1960.