The Seven Basic Plots - Christopher Booker [383]
When Oedipus gives way to anger in the earlier play, as he does in turn with Teiresias, Creon and Jocasta, it is always he, blinded by his egotism, who is in the wrong. When he explodes in fury in the later play, as he does with Creon and Polynices, he is expressing righteous anger at the mask of hypocrisy behind which they are each trying to win over his support for their own egocentric ends. The force of Oedipus's rage is shown to be fully justified by the ruthless way in which Creon then abducts the girls. Polynices reveals his obsessional desire to impose his will on Thebes, which, as the wise Oedipus can now see so clearly, can only end in destroying both his sons.
It is precisely this polarity between the `dark masculine' and the `light feminine' which so memorably dominates the third play Sophocles wrote on the story of this family. Antigone brings the tragic cycle to its conclusion: even though Sophocles wrote it nearly four decades before he was to come to the wonderful point of resolution which he achieved in the story of Oedipus's death and transfiguration, just before his own death.
Antigone: The triumph of the light feminine
Ten years before writing Oedipus Tyrannos Sophocles had already been inspired to write the tragedy which shows how the rest of Oedipus's family ended up. Although this was the first of the three plays to be written, the seeds of its theme are contained in the closing lines of Oedipus at Colonus, where Antigone and Ismene are given Theseus's promise of a safe journey back to Thebes, to see whether there is anything they can do to `stem the tide of blood that dooms our brothers'.
By the time Antigone opens, it is too late. Polynices has led his allies, `seven against Thebes', to storm the seven gates of the city. Their assault has been beaten off but, in the last encounter of a bloody battle, the two brothers, Polynices and Eteocles, had killed each other, exactly as their father foretold. The grim and aged Creon, now the undisputed ruler of the city, orders that the body of Eteocles, as its brave defender, should be given all honourable rites of burial. That of Polynices, as the traitrous invader, must be left unburied on the plain outside the gates, to be picked at by dogs and carrion birds. Anyone who dares disobey this order shall be put to death.
The play begins with Antigone telling her sister Ismene that she intends to defy Creon's order by giving their brother a proper burial. Ismene protests that this would be madness: `we are women, it is not for us to fight against men'. Antigone says that then she must be left alone with her madness: `There is no punishment can rob me of my honourable death.'
We then see King Creon telling his council that his highest duty must now be to keep Thebes united . They have seen too much evidence of what disaster can befall the city when it is divided. This is why his will must now be considered as law, and why his first edict has been to prohibit the burial of the traitor Polynices. He has made himself a complete dictator, and while he is thus exemplifying the `one-sided masculine' belief that, for the sake of the common good, power and order must come above all else, a sentry enters to report that Polynices' corpse has been covered with earth. Creon explodes with rage, and immediately suspects that someone must have been bribed to do this: `Money's the curse of man, none greater. That's what wrecks cities: He cannot believe that anyone would have done this for higher reasons. He tells the sentry that unless he can track down the criminal who has defied his edict, the sentry will pay with his life.
Not long afterwards, the sentry returns triumphant. Having removed the earth from the body, and then kept careful watch to see who might cover it up again, he has caught a woman in the act. It is Antigone. The sentry knows she will die, but he will be rewarded with money and, anyway, if he had not caught the culprit, he himself would