Sophocles’ Antigone Reflection

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Introduction

Antigone is a catastrophe by the ancient Greek writer Sophocles, transcribed around 442 BCE. It gives a picture of Antigone’s burial of her brother Polynices, in disobedience of Creon and the government’s rules, and the disastrous aftermaths of her act of civil insubordination. The deed of Antigone trails on from the Theban political war, where two brothers, Polynices and Eteocles, die rebelling one another for the power of Thebes after Eteocles had declined to hand over the thrown to his after their father Oedipus had decided. Creon, the new monarch of Thebes, had avowed that Eteocles to be esteemed while Polynices to be dishonored by deserting his body unburied on the battleground. This was a shameful and harsh punishment at that period. Creon becomes furious at the disobedience of Antigone over her actions of burying her brother and questions her. She does not deny what she had done and argues uncompromisingly with him about the morality of his proclamations and deeds.  

Lessons of Reading Antigone in the Context of Leadership Course

Antigone is focused on the verdict of a leader (i.e., Creon) that turns out to be a wrong decision. It is an account of leadership failure whereby each person pays a terrible price; most of the main characters perish, and others become left in misery. However, not all of the decisions made by leaders lead to death circumstances (Andújar & Nikoloutsos, 2017). Still, leadership failures and those who have had harmful societal outcomes have also been significant to failure. This information has more to impart to modern-day leaders who show a behavior very comparable to that of Creon. Antigone gives several significant practical knowledge points concerning leadership choices.  

Antigone shows that leadership decisions have a disastrous dimension that becomes completely clear in the play. Leadership actions are embedded in a compound perspective with dynamic interconnection variances and leading to possible tensions that impact the options and potentials to produce timely and a good leadership decision for the entire community. Creon’s leadership decision seems as the resolute deed to do away with conflict and ambiguity and to steer the state into its well-off future (Martin et al., 2018). Antigone shows that such resolution is debatable and steeped into patriarchal affairs.

Reflection of the Dilemmas of Speaking Truth to Power

The central theme running through Sophocles’ play is the dangers of speaking truth to power. The tragedy draws actions among King Creon’s sentinels to choose the unfortunate one who ought to tell his majesty that his niece, Antigone, had disobeyed a current decree he had declared. Still, the populace was rallying to her backing. Antigone’s motives for violating his rule is that she was a lady, in spite of everything, and that would be a significant blow to the male ego whereby Creon had declined to hear what his populaces had to say, be sure that to pay attention to them would be taken as an indication of weakness and, therefore, intimidation to his power.

In the piece, both the King and the messenger face-threatening moral choices: the sentinel is likely to be executed if he tells the truth to authority, and, as the monarch understands it, he needs to either undermine his power to rule or kill his son’s fiancé. Sophocles denotes that the final decision is both morally significant and more challenging. He places one ethical of the play in the mouth of the messenger: “To reject good counsel is a crime,” and a blind soothsayer articulates another one: “Stubbornness and stupidity are twins.” Therefore, the tragedy is a cue to leaders that their moral responsibility is to generate what, in a contemporary structural setting, is a culture of openness.

Conclusion

Practical reflection and engaging in dialogue and debate with others is essential when two leaders or individuals have opposing opinions. Antigone imparts a convenient fact about leadership, signifying that timely and right leadership decision making benefits from implementing the exercise of legitimate power. Political power is sometimes forceful and blunt. The obedience of the people is established through fear of punishment. Creon governs by inducing fear because that was the only way he knew.  

Reference

Andújar, R., & Nikoloutsos, K. (2017) Sophocles’ Antigone In Portrayals of Antigone in Portugal (pp. 11-26) Brill

https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004340060_003Luepnitz, D. A. (2020). Antigone and the Unsayable: A Psychoanalytic Reading. American Imago, 77(2), 345-364.

http://doi.org/10.1353/aim.2020.0020

Martin, L. A., Edwards, M., & Sayers, J. G. (2018). A “novel” discovery: Exploring women’s literary fiction for use in management and leadership education. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 17(1), 24-40.

https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2016.0369