Antigone LRJ 2

There are many vivid, important images in the play Antigone. These include descriptions of Polyneices and his fate of being eaten by animals. In many cases, the Chorus seems to have the most lines containing detailed imagery. For example, the Chorus uses a long metaphor to retell the story of how Polyneices attacks Thebes: “…the vexed claims of Polyneices; and, like shrill-screaming eagle, he flew over into our land, in snow-white pinion sheathed, with an armed throng, and with plumage of helms… He paused above our dwellings; he ravened around our sevenfold portals with spears athirst for blood; but he went hence, or ever his jaws were glutted with our gore…” This conjures a vivid image in one’s mind of the violence and cruelty of the attack.
Another important image is Polyneices’ body described being eaten by animals. A few characters in the play mention this, but it is Creon who says, “…none shall grace him with sepulture or lament, but leave him unburied, a corpse for birds and dogs to eat, a ghastly sight of shame.” This makes one shudder at the awful fate of abandoning a body out in the middle of a hot, deserted field.
King Creon has quite a few flaws, but pride and stubbornness could be called his fatal ones. For almost the entire play, he refuses to relent his thoughtless choice of denying Polyneices his burial. In some cases, he seems to almost regret it, but doesn’t want to back down and look weak. Finally, in the end, he says, “Ah me, 'tis hard, but I resign my cherished resolve,-I obey.” However, it is too late.
The anagnorisis and peripeteia of Antigone are the same -- or, Creon recognizes the truth at the same time as his fortunes are completely reversed. This happens, of course, when Antigone commits suicide, thereby prompting his son Haimon to kill himself, which then causes his wife Eurydice to as well. Creon is crushed by these losses, and doesn’t even want to remain living. He anguishes, “Oh, let it come, that I may never look upon to-morrow's light.”
The catharsis comes at the very end, when the leader of the chorus speaks the closing lines. The audience is stunned and saddened by the ending of the play, and with these words, feels a sense of release and closure: “Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness; and reverence towards the gods must be inviolate. Great words of prideful men are ever punished with great blows, and, in old age, teach the chastened to be wise.”
In Antigone, women are treated as though they are worth less than men. This issue comes to light many times during the play, and is recognized not only by the men but the women as well. Though Antigone is rebellious and breaks the law to bury her brother, she knows women are less valued than men and accepts it-- or at least, this is not the issue she out rightly challenges. Her sister acknowledges it more fully, saying to Antigone, “…we were born women, as who should not strive with men.” When Antigone disobeys her uncle, Creon says, “While I live, no woman shall rule me.” These two casual comments hint at a world of prejudice and privilege, where women are universally thought of as less important than men and thereby assumed untrustworthy and sometimes automatically guilty.