Antigone’s Claim and Other Nonsensical Thoughts
by Yvy Truong
Truth be told, I didn’t read all of Antigone’s Claim because I found it quite dry. However, after today’s lecture I think I’ll give it another go (but that means I have to juggle between rereading Antigone for the essay, Antigone’s Claim, and Dr. Faustus). Perhaps the second time around I’ll be able to get through the text and feel more interested.
So for this, I’ll just go on about not the text itself, but what I learned in lecture.
I found it interesting how Jill Fellows pointed out how when we focus on one aspect of the play, something else falls into ambiguity. I can kind of understand what she means because I remember in the last two seminars we had last week, when we would discuss a certain aspect of the play, something else would fall apart and when we tried to pick up those pieces, something else didn’t make sense. At one point, I would see Antigone as a strong character but at another, I would find her weak. Some things would make sense, but when the conversation progressed into something else, it contradicted what used to make sense.
Am I making sense?
So the structure of the play cannot be clearly pin-pointed, and that idea is reiterated when looking at Antigone as a character. Again, as earlier said in the lecture, Antigone does not fit the role of the woman nor does she fit in the role of a man.
Now this reminds me of two quotations:
“She is not of the human but speaks its language. Prohibited from action, she nevertheless acts, and her act is hardly a simple assimilation to an existing norm.” (Butler, 82)
and
“Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath out notice or more than human. Society is something that precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast of a god” – Aristotle (taken from Robert Crawford’s lecture slides)
Is Antigone apart of society? If a ship is metaphorical to the polis, what part of the ship is she?
From the two passages that I just quoted, it seems as thought Antigone cannot be defined as human and neither is she a part of society. Could that be perhaps the reason why she had to die? That it was essential for her to die because there was no way for her to be defined? She is an island onto herself but is it by nature or is it because of the circumstances?
I’m also looking back on my blog post from last week and I mentioned how Antigone was interesting because Sophocles shows us the struggle between individual wants and needs versus the polis and society. There is no clear answer to what is more triumphant, society or the individual, because remember, Kreon is the state and he is later subjected to a fate just as confusing and bleak as Antigone’s fate once was (before she killed herself)
And now I’m in a tangled mess of thoughts but I have a few questions….
What is it that defines us as human?
What could Antigone have done? What action could she have taken?
Why did Antigone have to die?
Why doesn’t this play make sense?
Am I making sense?
What is life?
Life?
And with that, I am very tired now.
Great post, Yvy! I especially like the part where you think about Antigone’s death, and whether perhaps we could read it as in some sense inevitable because she didn’t fit into the society in which she lived. One thing I got from Butler’s book along these lines is that we could read Kreon as symbolizing the social norms that won’t allow the existence of people and practices that don’t fit into those norms. Those people must be silenced, sent away, metaphorically killed (and sometimes actually killed, when they can’t face the situation and end up killing themselves, tragically). I think for Butler, Antigone represents all those various people who don’t fit into gender and kinship norms. But we have a choice–we don’t have to silence them, say they’re unintelligible, refuse to recognize their claims. Kreon was wrong.
I’m thinking along those lines for my essay as well but I still have a problem with Anitgone. Apart of the play is her taking action, but as well there is inaction on her part. I think it was mentioned in lecture that in terms of kinship, it is an active thing. It isn’t just something you’re born into and then ends there(which explains why we have friends that are so close that they can be considered as family, it’s because we’re actively involved, etc.,) In Antigone’s case, she is being active in the sense that she is carrying on family obligations by burying her family, etc., But a problem is that Antigone is not actively involved with Ismene. Kreon can be seen as an oppressor, as a person who will not allow the active progression of new titles to kinship, etc., but it is also Antigone’s fault because she is active in the lives of those who are dead but not in the people still presently in her life.
Antigone has the power to redefine but she doesn’t use it. She’s to engrossed in the past.
I also find that it’s Antigone’s “fault” for being ambiguous as well. When Antigone dies at the end I feel as if it’s stating that “ambiguity must die” and that ambiguity cannot exist. If it is true, that ambiguity cannot exist, then it is in the responsibility of the individual to redefine themselves rather than live listlessly.
Like what was said in lecture yesterday, even if people do not fit in the “White areas” or the “Black areas” and fall somewhere in the grey middle, it is nonetheless active. We will find whatever we are searching for but only if we continue to pursue it.
But now I really want to learn more about Kreon because of how he mirrors Antigone and if he follows the same fate as she does. We know from the text that Antigone is ambiguous but because of that, she dies. At the end of the play, Kreon is left ambiguous as well, but we know nothing more.
Wait… I just found a tragic flaw in my above statements.
If it’s true that we will find whatever we are searching for but only if we actively pursue it, we have to have some notion of what we are searching for. In Antigone’s case, she is searching for a death and that is the end result. She dies.
Uhg, my mind is going in threehundredandsixtyfive different directions.