Antigones

Bottom of page 250 through 251:

In this excerpt from Antigones, Steiner discusses the aspect of the play regarding the laws that govern humans. In lines 450-460, Antigone expresses her belief that the gods' "unfailing unwritten laws" that "live for all time" are paramount, not Creon's transient, earthly ones.

Steiner says that man was at home in timelessness; he was before or outside of history. Man was comfortable, and better off, when he didn't have to be of a certain time and when he followed rules that were applicable to any epoch in time. But the rational organization of time into historical events occurred and did considerable damage to the human condition. Antigone falls into the former category - Creon into the latter, which is the destructive one.

The timeless rules, or natural laws, of human relations are about "loving immediacy" and "unquestioning care," which Antigone understands. This is why she goes against her society's laws, knowing and disregarding the consequences, in order to take care of her brother's body. She doesn't care about ephemeral rulers and their silly laws; instead she feels compassion toward her fellow human beings, and especially toward her own flesh and blood. Her values are the antithesis of Creon's. He wishes to maintain order and carry out his edicts to save face, at the cost of what is natural to humans. Antigone tries to explain her motive to Creon, but he just doesn't get it. He's been too much affected by "the mutations, the transitory illusions, the divisive experiments, of a historical and political system" (251). Otherwise he would be more humane.

After Antigone's speech and condemnation of Creon, he doesn't have anything to say, to come back with. I love the following quote: "For time does not answer or, indeed, bandy words with eternity" (251). They're not on the same level whatsoever. Antigone and Creon cannot even communicate; she has transcended his world, or perhaps she never descended to it at all. Creon is bound to the timely, secular affairs of earth, and she won't acknowledge them. For this reason, her death sentence from Creon is meaningless to her. She had already learned that "only the full acceptance of death can yield a mortal lastingness."

Antigone's family and the fact that she will die without ever experiencing marriage or childbirth are of the highest import to her. But she knows she has power of her own, and she uses it to get the upper hand in this situation, by adhering to higher beliefs and in the end by taking her own life.