The Great Greek Work: The Literary Figures Of The Antigona Tragedy

The Great Greek Work: The Literary Figures of the Antigona tragedy

Sophocles was a tragic poet considered the greatest playwright based on his works on the Greek tragedy. Despite its literary production, only seven complete tragedies are preserved;Among them is Antigone, a tragedy based on the myth equally entitled, in the year 441 to.C suffering an adaptation in 1961. In this work, notions of duty are faced;On the one hand the family characterized by religious norms and the respect given to these and on the other hand the civil, compliance with the laws of the State and mainly to King Creon. 

This tragedy tells the life of Antigone that meets an ethical dilemma, his brother Polinices have died fighting his own city in a civil war, Creon, king of the city prohibits under penalty of death of his grave since he is considered a traitor. Antigone, very devout of traditions, tries to give that burial to his brother because according to Greek traditions, if a body was not buried his soul was condemned to wander for eternity. Antigone is captured while performing the sepulcher and is sentenced to be buried alive, bringing many consequences, mainly with the son of Creon.

Antigone.- “Creon provides that our two brothers is given to burial honorable and the other is abandoned insepult! To Eteocles, they say, command that, taken into account the law and custom, be buried with ritual honor, with all glory, so that among the dead also has honors. But not pollinice! No one can touch the Yererto and desolate corpse of our brother;No one has to bury him, no one has to cry for him, no one has to launch regrets, he must be thrown without funeral, without a grave for exquisite food of the birds of prey that will be fed up with their meats as soon as they see it ” .

Certain characters are used as a study where this debate can be noted more clearlaw?

Sòfocles although he does not mention it in the work time later in another writing mentions that Antigona could have responded as follows: “As it was not Jupiter who had promulgated them, nor justice, the companion of the infernal gods, has imposed those thoselaws to men, nor did I believe that your decrees had strength to erase and invalidate the divine laws, so that a mortal could break them. They are not today or yesterday, but they have always been in force and nobody knows when they appeared ”, since this response is not shown in the work can be interpreted as the opposition between obeying the laws of the gods that like him like himAntìgona says are not written anywhere or know that someone has written them or those promulgated by man who in this case were those imposed by Creon.

While natural law is not something that can be defined exactly, but are things that already existed without being dictated and recognized by the State, so they are automatically intrinsically valid, formed from 3 sources, God, consciousness andReason, this means that the State cannot intervene and much less break it since each individual is in charge of deciding in it and will depend on customs and traditions, from Socrates with the laws of the polis and for the Greeks the disobedienceIt meant the discussion of man himself as a social or political animal according to the Aristotelian definition. This way of perceiving the contempt of the law and its corresponding chaos, is present in the discourse of Creon, representative of political power, for whom disobedience to the laws of polis brings with it the worst evil, namely: anarchy: anarchy: anarchy:

Creon.- "An evil that anarchy does not exist. She annihilates cities. She houses demolishes by land. She makes the allies for war flee in rapid defeat. And those, on the other hand, what are subject to discipline are those that take their ship to the port of the triumph."

A perfect sample of the theatrical construction of Sophocles is the intervention of Teresiah that has logical thinking, clarity and exposes with conviction using a direct language and elaborates causal and consecutive sentences;Sophocles’ literary ability is manifested in these interventions, the use of rhetorical resources is obvious:

Colorist and conceptual adjectivation of great expressive force: "Old Poyo", "Égnoto screaming", "cruel and barbarians pecks", etc.

The polysestonton creates an atmosphere of accumulation of elements that overwhelm the interlocutor, since it has an appellation intention: "But the flame did not shine in the offerings, but the fat that flowed from the thighs was consumed in the ash and smoked and splashed, and theBile was diluted in the air, and the thighs, once drained, were stripped of the fat that previously covered them ”. It is an example of eloquence that contains the way of talking about these clearly profiled characters. They want to be understood in their righteous terms and strive to express themselves with conviction.

Metaphor, tool of enormous visual power: "And this is a disease that suffers from the city …". The most artistically effectively is: "Do not insist in riding a dagger to a deceased";enclose a huge dramatic force.

Synesthesia, immediate plastic power: "It is very difficult to learn"

Personification: "But the flame did not shine in the offerings". It serves to create an atmosphere of contained tension full of bad omens.

Rhetorical repetitions provide clarity and expressiveness. For them we can deduce the thematic nucleus: "offerings", "wrong", "advice" are the three keywords. In the air, the question floats: will I be able to understand and act what all of us, listeners or readers, we see clearly? It is a very effective way to create intrigue and dramatic tension

As you read in Creon’s decree, nobody promulgated them, but that can be lent to bad interpretations, as I think they modify them in their image and likeness marked by the monarchy, with the present tyranny that brought with it a conflict for the first time with theprotagonist considering the decision would not only tell the gods but to the feeling of the polis . In the theater of Sophocles, everyone who seems to have reached the culmination of his fame rushes into the most miserable physical or moral misfortunes. While it is a work of more than two thousand years ago, it also responds to observable aspects in our time, the lack of social organization and the excess or abuse of power by many people who do so with the aim of having immediate results by passingAbove all types of beliefs of the people to whom they govern, this allows us? Sophocles builds his tragedies with an amazing mastery. Two thousand five hundred years after its premiere, we continue to delight with these works full of emotion, elegance, reflection and life.