A Greek Tragedy: How Hegel And Butler's Interpreted The Antigone Play (Essay Sample)

Name University Course Instructor Antigone: Greek Tragedy Introduction The moral beliefs can conflict with the law of the land leading to a confrontation between the state, community and family. In the play, Antigone features a confrontation between the throne and the community and family understanding of morality. The play is given various translations and explanation in trying to connect that events and morality (Contu 401). This paper analyzes Carshon’s translation of Antigone based on the argument by Hegel that the conflict is based on two good positions held by Antigone and the Creon. Antigone Play Antigone is a tragedy play that was written in 441 BC. The play expands the legendary of Theban and continues to the final of Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes. The play features two brothers, leaders of the two different conflicting sides, who die in the civil war in Thebes (Contu 397). The two brothers, Eteocles and Polynieces, fight each other with the goal of inheriting the throne. The play begins with two sisters, Antigone and Ismene, planning to bury Polynieces' body despite the declaration of Creon. Creon declares that only Eteocles will be given an honorable burial which Polynieces will be disgraced by being left in the public for rebelling. However, Antigone is determined to burry Polynieces against the decree of the King and even without the support of the sister Ismene, who refuses to assist her. Although Antigone manages to burry Polynieces, she is found in the act and confesses to the crime. With fury, the King, Creon, decides that Polynieces’ body should be exhumed and taken through the first process and the Antigone should be buried alive in a burial cave (Contu 394). Haemon is in love with Antigone and therefore tries to convince his father, not to bury her alive. After a severe confrontation, the son leaves warning his father of never to come back again. Because of the stress and agony of being buried alive, Antigone decides to commit suicide by hanging herself. As a result of his great love, Haemon also decides to commit suicide due to his father’s action. Haemon’s mother, Eurydice, also commits suicides when she learns that her son is dead. All these deaths happen as warned by the blind prophet of Thebes, Tiresias (Vickers 9). Analysis of the Hegel perspective on Greek Tragedy Although the play can be examined as the confrontation between the good versus evil, Hegel explains it as the fight between two goods. Antigone believes that her family’s position and cultural rituals are a right to everyone over anything and Creon on the hand is adamant that the law of the land is supreme and should be observed at all costs. The conflict of consciousness is clearly through the perspective on ethical matters held by the two sides (Vickers 9). Creon, the ruler of Thebe, sees the law as universal, which fails to acknowledge the community and the family standing on various issues. Although rebels should be punished for their actions, the decision to dishonor a dead body is seen as contravening the moral ethics of other people. The Phenomenology of spirit examines the philosophical intuition as an incomplete institution for analyzing happenings. Published in 1807, Hegel evaluates the various stages of the evolution of consciousness. The level of consciousness, according to Hegel, starts with sensitive consciousness to the absolute spirit. In Hegel's view, the world exists in its conscious form. In his writing, Hegel was committed to evaluating the various aspects of human experience such as consciousness, knowledge, perception, cultural, morality, history and religion. Phenomenology, according to Chanter, is the study of different events that happen in human existence (2003). Hegel used his knowledge in trying to provide various philosophical understandings and answers to various questions that face human beings on matters of man, their surrounding and God. In his Phenomenology of spirits, Hegel explains that there is an individualistic level of knowledge and that there are universality concepts. Unlike other philosophical observations su...