Comparing Justice In Creon And Sophocles Antigone

Sophocles and Euripides have provoked audiences for centuries to question what constitutes ‘justice’. Watching the various events onstage, spectators are led to ask if a definitive form of justice exists in these plays, or whether notions of justice in a world such as mankind’s are absurd. Furthermore, by presenting cases where ‘justice’ is claimed to be enacted by a character or force (generally the gods), the playwrights encourage speculation as to whether the punishments delivered are reasonable. In this essay I intend, through an analysis of the two works (focusing especially on the characters Creon and Antigone), to emphasise how both playwrights address similar themes and concerns on the subject, yet arrive at different conclusions. Sophocles’ Antigone concludes on a note of hope, demonstrating some belief in the existence of a definitive, at least partially rational (if mysterious) system of justice and punishment. Conversely, Euripides’ The Bacchae is deliberately shaped so that what is emphasised is the possible conclusion that life contains an
Both maintain differing views on what constitutes justice, and via them Sophocles’ juxtaposes the values of ‘polis’ with those of ‘natural’ law. However, we must not conclude that this is a simple binary opposition; though Antigone’s family orientation is one that appears resolutely at odds with Creon’s ship of state, in fact the duty observed to one’s family is an integral part of the Greek concept of ‘polis’. Edith Hall observed that “a Greek citizens family life was a component of his political identity. One’s private conduct was seen as indicative of the manner one would exert political power”, (Hall, p.104). This principle is still true today. The two are not separate, and therefore there is the potential for the two to co-exist if both exhibit degrees of