Post by kmarino9 on Sept 28, 2011 16:03:13 GMT -5
The parallels between Antigone and Niobe highlight the heroine’s flaw of hubris as she laments her own tragic fate in order to receive the common man’s sympathy for her imminent death. By Scene 4 the entirety of Antigone’s strength and will to survive has almost fully dissipated and there is a sense of self-pity in her dark words. Antigone laments her own fate by telling the common man that she felt, “the loneliness of her [Niobe] death in mine” (225). Instead of burning with the desire to face Creon and his tyrannical punishment, she compares herself to a Greek demi-goddess with a fate so cruel and lonely most can believe that Antigone has fully given up on her own chance at redemption as well. The comparison of the two women proves that Antigone is in a state of helplessness, caught up in events beyond her control. Similarly to the demi-goddess Niobe, Antigone becomes tangled in a web of pride for her family, believing that she would be able to bury her brother without consequence. Instead her flaw spirals out of control and she is unable to handle the powerful emotions brought on by an approaching death. Antigone explains that instead of her own actions, the death presented to her is a result of “the blasphemy of my birth”(226). Possibly to seek pity or sympathy from the common man Antigone leaves them with her feelings of hopelessness and denial. Niobe turns herself to stone and weeps tears of rain to escape the truth while Antigone plays a pathetic blame game yet in the end both women are faced with the tragic fate of an excess of pride for their own family name.