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Antigone - Sophocles

             The play Antigone, written by Sophocles, expresses viewpoints of the author in regards to several issues. One such issue is that of fate. The play's events reveal that Sophocles believes that all people control their own fate based upon the actions they take. He does not deem that all people have predetermined paths of life. .
             The actions that Antigone take throughout the play unmistakably identify Sophocles belief that people control their own destiny. She causes her own collapse and death. Her first mistake was her decision to violate Creon's rule by burying Polyneices. She makes this choice even though she knows that the penalty for burying Polyneices is death. With this knowledge she persists and puts herself in a risky situation. Her stubbornness plays a major role in her death as well. Antigone shows her naivety by thinking that "Creon is not strong enough to stand in (her) way" (750). Creon is the ruler of Thebes and has vast power and supremacy. Antigone is unrealistic to believe that she really does have more strength than Creon. She chooses to put herself in a dangerous situation by underestimating him. Infringing upon Creon's law is alone enough to get Antigone killed but she has even more of an affect on her future. She simply lets herself be led to her eventual death, rather than attempting to flee or fight her way out. She expresses her weakness just before death: "Then let me go Lead me to my vigil, where I must have Neither love nor lamentation; no song, but silence." (778). Not only does she put forth a weak effort to save herself, but in the end, she takes her own life. If Antigone thought that she was in fact correct in burying Polyneices, she would have waited for the gods" assistance, rather than killing herself.
             Antigone is not the only character to command her own fate. Creon is a perfect example. Creon's first error occurs when he announces that "whoever shows by word and deed that he is on the side of the state (whoever buries Polyneices) shall have my reverence when he is dead.


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