The Role of Fate and the Gods in Antigone

Divine law can be defined as a rule or regulation coming directly from the gods. According to Greek mythology, each god is believed to possess individual and unique powers that can either help or hinder the lives of mortals. Their role in the lives of humans is illustrated in Antigone with her death. Sophocles emphasizes in Antigone that the gods’ will is carried out by people and that fate takes control of all life.

Sophocles was one of the three most distinguished playwrights of Ancient Greece, the other two being Aeschylus and Euripides (Jebb 1). Of his 100 or more plays, seven have been completely saved and fragments of many others have been recovered. Fate is a recurring theme not only in Sophocles’ plays, but in much of Greek drama. For example, in Oedipus Rex, a prophet warns Laius that his fate is to be killed by his own son. Laius attempts to avoid his fate by leaving his infant son on a mountainside, but the boy is saved by a shepherd and eventually kills his father, although unaware of Laius’s identity. Aeschylus also illustrates divine law and the power of the gods in his work Prometheus Bound, where Prometheus is rebellious and therefore punished by Zeus.

. . .
ntigone, as in all Greek drama, the gods control the fate and actions of humans and punish or reward them appropriately. But caught or not

(And fortune must determine that) thou never

Shalt see me here returning; that is sure. An example of this is Campbell’s examination of Antigone. ” (Felton 4)

Felton believes that unlike Homer and Aeschylus, Sophocles does not approach destiny as a dark or terrible entity, but instead as a religious device.

Many critics have analyzed Sophocles’s use of the gods and divine law. He also thanks the gods for his safety because he is aware that it is their decision if he is to be safe or not. ” (Sophocles 34)

Here Teiresias explains that the gods are punishing Creon by taking what is most precious to him in response to his wrongly judging Antigone. The gods are in charge of the people and their actions. Teiresias tells Creon

“Thou shalt have given the fruit of thine own loins

In quittance of thy murder, life for life;

For that thou hast entombed a living soul,

And sent below a denizen of earth,

And wronged the nether gods by leaving here

A corpse unlaved, unwept, unsepulchered. Felton says,

“In general, as conceived by the tragedians, it was the hidden source from which human events took their unalterable direction, against which it was in vain for man to struggle. Sometimes it appears in the form of a curse, pronounced upon some particular family, and extending down to remote generations. Jebb points out that the chorus praises the gods by illustrating their ability to overcome human powers. When he says,

“In Antigone Zeus is at once responsible for the troubles that have beset the house and also the authority to which the heroine appeals in defence of her action.

For past all hope or thought I have escaped,

And for my safety owe the gods much thanks.

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Approximate Word count = 965
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

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