Post by nzahorodny09 on Sept 27, 2011 18:47:58 GMT -5
[Note: I would like to preface my analysis by informing the reader that the textual evidence presented in this post will be drawn exclusively from the Lattimore translation, which many regard as a more accurate rendering of the original than that of Fitzgerald.]
Through Antigone’s dialogue in this final play of the Oedipus Cycle, Sophocles presents the tragedy’s fourth scene as an extension of a classical Greek meditation on the relationship between generative, sexual forces and destructive, thanotic ones.
The playwright succeeds in this objective by employing the words of his protagonist as a referential appeal to the quintessential Greek manifestation of this paradox, namely, the mythical abduction of Persephone. From the opening lines, definite parallels emerge between the two characters. As servants lead her to the tomb, Antigone laments, “I am alive but Hades who gives sleep to everyone is leading me to the shores of Acheron…My husband is to be the Lord of Death.” Besides recognizing the personification of death as a husband, and therefore, as a lover, the reader immediately remembers Persephone, who was herself kidnapped by Hades, and later, became his bride. Furthermore, Antigone, accursed and alone in her fate, at one point cries out, “Neither among the living or the dead / do I have a home in common,” a sentiment echoing the chorus only a few lines before: “…you will descend, alive / to that world of death.” Once again, Sophocles clearly casts his protagonist as Persephone, that unfortunate demigod destined to abide each year six months on Earth and six months in hell. In doing so he evokes through his character the dual nature of the goddess, who was worshipped as a deity both of vegetation and of death, to further emphasize this central paradox.
Having thus grounded his mediation in tradition, Sophocles proceeds to elaborate on it in a number of novel ways. Most prominent amongst these remains Antigone’s description of her tomb as a “bridal chamber”, terminology further suggesting a relationship between death and the sex act. Also, illustrative of this paradox is her reference to “the doomed self-destruction of [her] mother’s bed.” Here, the creative, erotic energy of her mother and father doubles as the force that ultimately reduces the line of the Labdacids to ruin. Yet, despite Antigone’s professions of sorrow, she willingly embraces death, consummating their union by her own hand. And therein lies Sophocles’ fundamental assertion concerning the interaction between sex and death, generation and destruction. Both are complementary, yet conflicting drives, each containing a seed of the other and each, at times, constituting an impulse of irresistible attraction.
Through Antigone’s dialogue in this final play of the Oedipus Cycle, Sophocles presents the tragedy’s fourth scene as an extension of a classical Greek meditation on the relationship between generative, sexual forces and destructive, thanotic ones.
The playwright succeeds in this objective by employing the words of his protagonist as a referential appeal to the quintessential Greek manifestation of this paradox, namely, the mythical abduction of Persephone. From the opening lines, definite parallels emerge between the two characters. As servants lead her to the tomb, Antigone laments, “I am alive but Hades who gives sleep to everyone is leading me to the shores of Acheron…My husband is to be the Lord of Death.” Besides recognizing the personification of death as a husband, and therefore, as a lover, the reader immediately remembers Persephone, who was herself kidnapped by Hades, and later, became his bride. Furthermore, Antigone, accursed and alone in her fate, at one point cries out, “Neither among the living or the dead / do I have a home in common,” a sentiment echoing the chorus only a few lines before: “…you will descend, alive / to that world of death.” Once again, Sophocles clearly casts his protagonist as Persephone, that unfortunate demigod destined to abide each year six months on Earth and six months in hell. In doing so he evokes through his character the dual nature of the goddess, who was worshipped as a deity both of vegetation and of death, to further emphasize this central paradox.
Having thus grounded his mediation in tradition, Sophocles proceeds to elaborate on it in a number of novel ways. Most prominent amongst these remains Antigone’s description of her tomb as a “bridal chamber”, terminology further suggesting a relationship between death and the sex act. Also, illustrative of this paradox is her reference to “the doomed self-destruction of [her] mother’s bed.” Here, the creative, erotic energy of her mother and father doubles as the force that ultimately reduces the line of the Labdacids to ruin. Yet, despite Antigone’s professions of sorrow, she willingly embraces death, consummating their union by her own hand. And therein lies Sophocles’ fundamental assertion concerning the interaction between sex and death, generation and destruction. Both are complementary, yet conflicting drives, each containing a seed of the other and each, at times, constituting an impulse of irresistible attraction.