Bridal Imagery of Antigone

Another very major event in the play Antigone that shapes Creon’s character through the bridal image, is the death of his son Haemon. Haemon tries repeatedly to reason with his father, so that he [Creon] will forgive Antigone for her crime. Creon unwisely resists the words of his own son, as he believes that it would make him look like a weak ruler if he gave in to the opinions of the people. Creon is also extremely upset with Haemon for not subduing to his laws and orders. “Yea, this, my son, should be thy heart’s fixed law,- in all things to obey thy father’s will.” (Oates/ O’Neill, 210) Creon is obviously configuring random arguments in order to digress from his unjust ways. Another one being that Creon is ashamed that his son is defying his father’s laws for the sake of a woman. “Then do not thou, my son, at pleasure’s beck, dethrone thy reason for a woman’s sake; knowing that this is a joy that soon grows cold in clasping arms,- an evil woman to share thy bed and home.” (Oates/ O’Neill, 210) Haemon soon finds that it is a hopeless cause to try and convince his father of his [Creon’s] wrongdoings, so as a result, Haemon backs down until Antigone is sent away. After Antigone is sent to her bridal-chamber, Haemon follows, and attempts to rescue her, however he finds that he is too late, and Antigone has already taken her own life. Haemon was devastated over the consequences of his father’s actions. “This search, at our despairing master’s word, we went to make; and in the furthest part of the tomb we descried her hanging by the neck, slung by a thread-wrought halter of fine linen: while he was embracing her with arms thrown around her waist ,- bewailing the loss of his bride who is with the dead, and his father’s deeds, and his own ill-starred love.” (Oates/ O’Neill, 229) Creon realizes that Haemon has gone and chases after him. Haemon and his father have a confrontation within the bridal chamber of Antigone. “But his father, when he saw him, cried aloud with a dread cry and went in, and called to him with a voice of wailing:- ‘Unhappy, what a deed hast thou done! What thought hath come to thee? What manner of mischance hath harred thy reason? Come forth, my child! I pray thee- I implore!’ But the boy glared at him with fierce eyes, spat in his face, and, without a word of answer, drew his cross-hilted sword:- as his father rushed forth in flight, he missed his aim;- then, hapless one, wroth with himself, he straightway leaned with all his weight against his sword, and drove it, half its length, into his side; and, while sense lingered, he clasped the maiden to his faint embrace, and, as he gasped, sent forth on her pale cheek the swift stream of the oozing blood.” (Oates/ O’Neill, 229-230) Haemon takes his own life at the foot of Antigone to show his father the mistake that he made. Though the bridal imagery is somewhat indirect through the death of Haemon, it is still present in many ways. The impact of the bridal image is most obviously brought to Creon’s attention resulting from where his

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