Answer to Question 1
- Why is it so important to Antigone that the body of Polyneices be given a proper burial? Quite simply, because she loved her brother and because she feels that a proper burial is reverence that the living owe to all the dead. I shall be / a criminal but a religious one is her comment to Ismene (see lines 8485), and she elaborates on this theme in the following exchange with Creon:
Antigone: There is nothing shameful in honoring my brother.
Creon: Was not he that died on the other side your brother?
Antigone: Yes, indeed, of my own blood from father and mother.
Creon: Why then do you show a grace that must be impious in
his sight?
Antigone: That other dead man would never bear you witness in what you say.
Creon: Yes he would, if you put him only on equality with one that was a desecrator.
Antigone: It was his brother, not his slave, that died.
Creon: He died destroying the country the other defended.
Antigone: The god of death demands these rites for both.
Creon: But the good man does not seek an
equal share only, with the bad.
Antigone: Who knows
if in that other world this is true piety?
Creon: My enemy is still my enemy, even in death.
Antigone: My nature is to join in love, not hate. (lines 559575)
Answer to Question 2
- The ending of the play is extremely moving in its atmosphere of loss and destruction, but the gloom is not quite total, because Oedipus speaks and acts from a depth of humility and compassion that he has not previously displayed. Insofar as there is catharsis here, it resides not only in the idea that the murderer has been outed and the scales of justice have been rebalanced, but also in the sense that deserved suffering and acceptance of responsibility have taught Oedipus a significant lesson in humanity and deepened his moral understanding and sympathy. It is a small victory wrested from a tremendous amount of waste and desolation, but this is, after all, a tragedy.
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