The story of Antigone is far more than just the typical tragedy. While the play certainly goes through the typical story arc of a respected, promising hero (in this case heroine) falling from her pedestal in heartbreakingly sorrowful manner, this particular tragedy adds far more to the dramatic experience than just what we as readers have come to expect from tragedies. In fact, reading Antigone directly after finishing Oedipus Rex and thus coming into the story with the horrors that Thebes, Creon, and, Oedipus’ children have just finished dealing with fresh on the brain, it almost seems as if the city of Thebes itself serves as its own version of the tragic hero. In the series of events described by Sophocles (in addition to the events that he trusted his audience to already know about the city) alone, Thebes has been forced to deal with a man-eating Sphinx, a murdered King, an incestuous relationship between the Queen and her son/her former husband’s killer who has since become the new king, the death and expulsion of a queen and king, respectively, and finally a war instigated by one of the former king’s sons. Despite all of this, the city of Thebes has kept its pride and character, and seems to be just as promising, wholesome, and majestic as the two more conventional tragic heroes of the play at the beginning of Antigone.
Contrary to these other characters, though, Thebes is not in total despair at the end of the play. While Antigone is dead, and Creon might as well be by the time he hears of his wife’s suicide, Sophocles gives no indication that this latest failure in Thebes’ government will be any more potent than the ones detailed in Oedipus Rex. Though the city’s response to this latest in their series of misfortunes is not responded to with the immediacy that Oedipus’ death was, this does not mean that Sophocles’ Thebes was without hope. Perhaps in saying that he alone is responsible for the deaths of his wife and son, Creon absolves the rest of the city of guilt in the fiasco, essentially creating the possibility for recovery and long sought-after peace for the city as a whole. In fact, outside of Creon’s family, if you include his sister’s family tree in that description, no one in Thebes seems to be having too much tragedy. In fact, by the end of this story, readers are left feeling that perhaps there is no “anagnorisis” because Creon’s family is simply not right for the throne of Thebes, thus separating his tragedy from the city’s. With everyone from Oedipus to Creon to Haimon now deceased, it seems as if the rotten branch of the tree of Thebes has been pruned in order to facilitate growth, rather than tragically chopped off. And perhaps this is why Thebes itself cannot truly be categorized as a unique type of tragic hero. Perhaps the chance to move onward in a totally new direction is just what Sophocles’ sad city needs in order to truly thrive and shed the tragedy of its past. The difference is all in perspective. (521)
