Hannah Arendt Essay

This essay shall be discussing Hannah Arendt’s notions on violence, the implements of it, the relationship between violence and the state, how the meaning of violence is inherent in the text through certain use of language and how violence is specifically evoked through the language of the characters in the play, for example in Antigone, the use of the chorus, the messenger to report the violence to Creon, and the words spoken by Creon and Antigone throughout the play. The essay shall also be looking at the event and the interruption – how Antigone serves as the interruption of the continuum of Creon being untouchable and seeing the violence that interrupts as progressive for the play and not just negatively. The creative act shall also be spoken about and how violence was extolled as a demonstration of its creativity. It shall also contain the violent acts present in Antigone and how they were portrayed in the play. How Creon is the law and how Antigone defies the law and becomes a representative of the plot of defiance and how Creon loses his power, family and everything to withhold the law of the state. Is violence naturally inherent in all human beings or does it become us when laws are inflicted on us by the state that we find ourselves in conflict with?
Violence is an element of life, as it falls among the natural human emotions, and often begins under circumstances that inflict rage. Rage only arises when man’s sense of justice is offended; therefore it is tempting to move to violence to end the situation as violence is the most immediate and swift form of action. Violence is seen under certain circumstances as the only way to set the scales of justice right again. Violence being instrumental by nature is rational to the extent that it is effective in reaching the end that must justify it, (Arendt 1970: 79). At the end of Antigone, Creon’s family gets destroyed but this is justified because he cares for his city. Antigone’s act of violence toward Creon