Weighed against Creon’s decision as a ruler is Antigone’s decision as a sister: that she owes her dead brother the funeral rites which will enable him to enter the afterlife and find peace in death. Of course, Creon’s flaw is that he fails to realise that he has become the very thing he declared he was saving Thebes from. Would Polyneices have treated the people of Thebes well? Or would he, in anger at his brother’s behaviour, have torched Thebes to the ground?Ĭreon’s decision not to allow Polyneices a sacred burial is designed to send a clear message that this man was an invader, a would-be tyrant who the people of Thebes have been saved from. Polyneices, after he fell out with Eteocles, had raised an army and marched on the city, with a view to seizing power and ruling the city. Yet it is worth remembering, in Creon’s defence, the reasons for his harsh decree at the outset of the play.
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