Antigone, the character for which the play was named, is a very complex character. She seems to change directions all throughout the play and there is never one point in which you know exactly what she will do because she is just that unpredictable. This unpredictability also makes her seem very hypocritical because she will say something and then turn on a dime and say the complete opposite. Antigone’s character is very intriguing strictly due to the fact that she keeps you guessing. The following will show the many variations that her character shows throughout the play.
There are several points in the play that Antigone seems very heroic, especially when she is speaking to Creon about her reasoning for attempting to bury her brother. She reflects every aspect of a hero by trying to sneak out not once, but twice and then even more by standing up to Creon. All of these heroics, however, in a very short time make her look very selfish. After Creon tells her the story about her brother’s bodies, she takes the stance that she must bury her brother for herself. That all but erases the thought of her, as a hero because all of her actions that were thought to have been done for Polynices were only done to satisfy her own needs.
The one characteristic of Antigone that seems to be constant throughout the play is her stubbornness. From the beginning of the play when she sneaks out to bury her brother after Creon had specifically told her not to, all the way to the end when she is given the opportunity to marry Haemon and go on living but forces her own death. She always seemed to fight everything for as long as possible, never taking the easy way out if it compromised her beliefs. In the end it was her stubbornness that ultimately killed her.
Antigone also attempts to come across as the so-called ‘innocent victim’. When she is first found out and Creon confronts her, she pushes the fact that she had to do it for Polynices. Even when that reason went to hell and she changed her story to say that she had to bury him for herself, she still said she was bound to do it, which represents Antigone trying to make herself look innocent by saying she had to do it. I do not think there is a right or wrong answer as to whether she was an innocent victim or not, but the question is posed all throughout the play.
Of all Antigone’s characteristics, it seems as though her stubbornness is the most prevalent of all. The fact that she is stubborn is only the beginning of the description of her character. Antigone is by far the most complex of all the characters in the play and I think it is safe to say that none even come close to her. I believe that the variations in her character also make her the most interesting of all the characters because with the others you know what to expect. Antigone is an amazing play and the title character is as amazing as she is complex.
