Wednesday, March 28, 2012

In Antigone, what words does Antigone speak that suggest she does not regret her actions?

After Creon has ordered that Antigone be taken away to be
walled up in the tomb and left to die, she contemplates her imminent death.  She
observes that she will die only because she gave her brother Polynices the same loving
burial rites she afforded to her mother, father, and brother
Eteocles:


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When you [mother, father, Eteocles] died I
washed you with my hands,


I dressed you all, I poured the
sacred cups


across your tombs. But now,
Polynices,


because I laid your body out as
well,


this, this is my reward.
Nevertheless


I honored you--the decent will admit
it--


well and wisely
too.



Antigone does not regret
her actions in burying Polynices, the last surviving member of her family. She believes
she had done the right thing in honoring him, and she believes "decent" people know that
she was wise to have done it.


Even prior to her entombment,
during her first confrontation with Creon, Antigone clearly understood the consequences
of her actions and did not regret her choice to bury her brother, thus honoring the laws
of the gods that, in her opinion, were more binding than Creon's
edict:



These
laws [of the gods]--I was not about to break


them, not out
of fear of some man's wounded pride,


and face the
retribution of the gods.



- -
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So for me,
at least, to meet this doom of yours


is precious little
pain. But if I had allowed


my own mother's son to rot, an
unburied corpse--


that would have been an agony! This
[being


condemned by Creon] is
nothing.



Antigone does not
regret defying Creon by obeying divine law and honoring her own
family.

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