Discussion: Antigone and Phedre

On one level a play about conflicting laws, on another level a play about passion and duty.  The play ANTIGONE was full of dualism, a word I've never really thought much about prior to this class.

Youth [Antigone]  vs. Age [Creon]
Female [Antigone] vs. Male [Creon]
Ruler [Creon] vs. subjects [Antigone]
Passion [Antigone] vs. reason [Creon]
Duty to Family and Gods [Antigone] vs. duty to the State/Thebes [Creon]

Some of the group felt that Antigone was a rebellious teenager and the main conflict was between youth and age.  I didn't get that perpective from my reading of the text.  For me the main conflict was between the duty to the gods to bury a family member vs the duty towards the state to stand strongly against threats to the city state (and NOT bury the body of a traitor - as a warning to others who might try to attack Thebes).

Stephen set possible resolutions out as Aristotelian moderation vs a Hegelian requirement for synthesis (a better and more progressive solution, working out a way to have family loyalties AND loyalty to state).  Creon eventually did bend and decide to provide a proper burial and to pardon Antigone but too late.

Antigone is very single-minded: her duty to her family (brothers, parents) comes above all.  She even says that she would not go against the state for her husband or children as they can be replaced.  It's hard to know how she feels about her sister as she doesn't seem too concerned about any duty towards Ismene.  Creon feels equally strongly (though I'm not sure if he is equally passionate) about Thebes.

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But it’s even worse when he plays favourites

Puts family or friends ahead of fatherland.

Someone mentioned that in Greek plays, women are the holders of passion and men are the holders of reason but they get thrown off course by passion.
Lorraine mentioned that the cover of the text is a photo of Simone Weil.  I hadn't read the note about the photo.  Simone Weil died for holding to her principles, just as Antigone did.

Other than Creon, no one in the play seems to question Antigone's decision and actions.  At the end, Antigone who has been so strong, suddenly bewails her fate:

…They are taking me against my will.

Look at me O you lords of Thebes:
I am the last remnant of kings.
Look at what these wretched men are doing to me,
For my pure reverence!

Did Antigone feel that the gods would save her?  She seems to suddenly be fighting against her [self-induced] fate – being murdered for her reverence to the unwritten laws of the gods.

During the course of the play, Creon is the only character who really changes.  Unyielding and unwilling to bend at the beginning, before the end of the play he decides that holding to his original positions will lead to injustice.  He changes his mind but too late to avert tragedy.

In Phedre as well, passion seems much stronge than reason though those whose actions are most governed by passion seem to end tragically.  The play by Racine is based on a play called Hippolytus by Euripides.  Stephen mentioned that Racine was raised and educated in a Jansenist monastery in Port Royal.  Cornelius Jansen argued that since the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, man has not possessed free will.  Our lives are guided or directed by "concupisentia" (ardent desire) and subject to grace.  Most people are driven by their desires with only a few being guided  by grace.  This was compared to the Calvinist doctrine of predestination.  Neither the Jansenists nor the Calvinists wanted to admit they felt desire because that would show they were not one of the "elect".

We had a discussion about guilt.  Phedre resists her attraction to Hipploytus because she feels it is wrong but her life is blighted by the guilt she feels over her feelings (though she feels she has been cursed by Venus and this is why she makes poor choices in love).  Hippolytus was a strong character, upright, chaste, strong and brave but he becomes weak and doomed when he falls in love (with Aricia).

Finally we discussed Aristotles' championing of "moderation" and how his works would have been known to the audiences of both plays.  Both Antigone and Phedre would have demonstrated what happens when you go to extremes and don’t practice moderation.