In Antigone, two brothers communal the king status, which Oedipus their father, left for them. One of the brothers, Polynices, wanted to commence a war with the kingdom since he wanted the king status for himself only. The main ruler, at the time, Eteocles and Polynices fought each other, therefore wistfully killing each other. Their Uncle Creon, who prehended position as King after the deaths of the brother decided that only Eteocles will have a proper burial; Polynices body should lay rotting with no legitimate burial.
Antigone, the deceased king’s sister, concludes that Creon’s decision abides unfair, acquiring herself to give Polynices an authentic entombment. When their other sister Ismene discovers her plans she becomes cemented between helping her sister bury their brother and following Creon’s demands. Ismene and Antigone fall in different categories when it comes to heroic awards; Antigone acquires the brave status while Ismene earns the tip-top achievement. Within Antigone Sophocles left manifold unwritten questions and conflicts.
In Antigone, multiple characters’ minds haul in conflicting directions by two obligations. The youngest daughter of Oedipus, Ismene, whose name means “to linger towards,” deposits between two conflicting forces of loyalty to her sister and abiding by the laws set out by Creon. Ismene, the vigorous girl of the family, does as told and follows the laws. When she finds out that Antigone adjudicates Creon, she becomes perturbed. The tip-top girl of the family says she cannot act against the law and that the consequences of acting against the laws put fears in her.
The righteousness of Ismene interferes with her decision of whether to help her sister or not. Eventually Ismene recants and wants to help Antigone with the illegal burial of their brother Polyneices, unfortunately Antigone rejects. The recanting of Ismene angers her sister; She feels that Ismene should of chose her in the first place and now the option of helping no longer exists. Without the help of Ismene, Antigone obtains entanglement by the guard for the strenuous entombment of her brother Polynices for a second time.
If Ismene did please her sister with deciding to help in the first place would Antigone of got caught? After Antigone gets caught Ismene tries to take some blame for Antigone’s actions, nevertheless her sister did not allow her to do so. An internal conflict exist in Ismene for not trying to help her sister when first asked; the internal conflict becomes the reason for her trying to take some blame in the acts Antigone done herself. The daughters of Oedipus Rex mirror each other when it comes to the importance of loyalty to family or to the law.
Antigone and Ismene obtain the penalty of death; Creon relents on the executing of Ismene. Before Creon relented, Ismene gets scorned by Antigone for her latest attempt of righteousness. Consistently believing in loyalty, Ismene chose the loyalty to her family. Even though she made a late decision that Antigone rejects, she still remains loyal to her family by offering her help after she denied it to Antigone the first time. The second conflicting force that Ismene faced was her quality of loyalty for the law.
Ismene also does not want the curse that surrounds her whole family to have an effect on her or her sister, since they occupy the position of the last living children from their father Oedipus. “We must obey their orders, however harsh. So, while apologizing to the dead, regretting that I act under constraint, I will comply with my superior’s orders. Sticking one’s neck out would be merely foolish (22-26),” Ismene told her sister. Hearing this from Ismene did nothing besides make Antigone mad.
Knowledge that Antigone learns, induced by Ismene, contains that Ismene acquires no power when it comes to act against the laws and she will keep quiet as should Antigone, nevertheless Antigone told her to blurt it out to the law that she plans to burying her brother’s corpse. The conversation between the two ends with Antigone telling her sister “you’ve earned my hatred and that of our dead brother too (9-20). ” Two choices remained for Ismene, to help her sister and to stay devoted to her family or to obey the law and show her integrity to Creon.
In the beginning of the controversy between Antigone and Ismene, Ismene gave her loyalty to Creon and repeatedly telling her sister that she should not go through with the plans she has created. In the middle of the argument Ismene decides to give her existing loyalty to her family and help with the burial. At the end of the play of Antigone, three people end up dead: Antigone, Haemon or Haimon (Antigone fiance also Creon’s son) and Creon’s wife.
Ismene’s loyalty not with her family (at first not with her family), seemed to cause these three deaths; the stubbornness of Antigone created a conflict, resulting in the end her death and two others as well. The ignored fate of Ismene leaves the reader wondering what happened to her. Did she transpire to of just disappeared after Creon relents on her execution? Where Ismene’s loyalty lays arises and it lied with her family at the end of the day, although Antigone may have believed that her sister chose to be loyal to the Kingdom.