The Immortal Laws of the Gods

In Antigone we learn one basic truth about life. Never question the gods. Sophocles stresses this point in both Antigone and Oedipus Rex. Oedipus focuses on the prophecies of the gods and their infallibility. Antigone however focuses on the laws of the gods and their precedence over the laws of man. Creon as the king who has newly come to power passes the law that Polyneices may not be given the burial rites because of his supposed treachery to his country. Antigone poses the fact that the laws of the gods supersede any mortal given law and therefore can not be ignored. Her burial of her brother causes Creon to demand her death but his rash reaction was due to hubris and not logic.

As a new king, not of the main royal line, he must stake his claim as king by quickly showing his authority. He also angers easily at the breaking of his law, one that is not only rash but conflicts with the gods’ will, much as Oedipus reacts with anger before reason. This impulsive anger by Creon, much out of character from the Creon of Oedipus Rex, may be due only to the fact that Antigone preceded Oedipus Rex or may be the direct cause of the stresses of a new kingship and cleaning up the remnants of a civil war for power. Whatever the reason he sentences Antigone to death, to which she goes willingly. It seems that everyone in Thebes except for Creon himself agrees with Antigone’s belief that the gods will forgive her for breaking the law as voiced by his son Haimon. Antigone brings forth an age old question of whether the laws of men are more important than the higher intrinsic laws.

In both plays, but especially Antigone, Sophocles notes that the will of the gods does not bend no matter what the circumstances may be. His plays no doubt were meant at the time to remind the Grecians that they ought to respect their gods and to remind them that they did indeed owe their fealty to them. But these thoughts are not that uncommon even today, the laws of the church sometimes come into conflict with the laws of man and there are very heated debates on which laws should be adhered to. Such as with abortion, contraception, and gay marriage the laws of God and the laws of man come head to head in a battle for supremacy. In these matters I generally take the side that agrees with my sensibility, usually not the church, and it seems that on the whole the world has deviated from Sophocles’s unyielding gods. Antigone still poses the questions about whether the laws of gods or man should be held onto but where the play provides an answer for Sophocles’s Athens it has no simple solution in the modern world. Now the line between what is right and what God says is blurring more and more. People decide for themselves where for centuries they followed blindly what they were told. In the modern world people can choose for themselves where they were once told what to think, we no longer live in the out dated world of Sophocles. (536)

Caius and the problem with Mortality

I was struck by one paragraph in particular in Tolstoy’s story, the one pertaining to the humanity of Caius. I was especially drawn to the fact that I could identify in his assessment of life and humanity and that I was of the same mind set. “Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal.” This logic is inherent in all of us as humans but so is the following logic as referenced by Ivan; while Caius is a man and mortal, Caius is not Ivan so therefore the same logic does not apply to Ivan. Ivan is horrified to find that these principles of mortality apply not only to the generic Caius but also to little Vanya, to Ivan Ilych, to Jean, to his entire being. The fact that after death the person he has been and the person he is known as will cease to exist horrifies him just as it horrifies anyone who thinks about their own mortality a little too closely.

The Russian society of the time was of this mindset of immortality, or at least non-mortality. We see in Ivan’s “friends” the same disregard for his illness and death as something that happened to someone else. Even his childhood friend Peter Ivanovich brushes off the feeling of horror with thoughts “that this had happened to Ivan Ilych and not him.” It was not just the Russian society, society as a whole has this same mindset on human mortality. Even today no one thinks of their own mortality unless forced to stare it straight in the face. People do not like to think of their own mortality, as far as anyone is concerned there is no such thing as death until they are dead.

I empathize with Ivan in his thinking, and so do most people I know. Death, pain, hardship, these are all things that occur to other people. I personally think about my own mortality more often than most people but I still hold to the same hope that maybe death does not apply to me. That is the way we live as a society, anything that challenges our normal life is wrong. We block out these thoughts about death or being robbed or losing everything because it is easier to deny that they happen than it is to face them and realize that they are real and very well may happen, or in some cases will indeed happen. Mankind is afraid of facing their mortality because once you admit it it becomes truth. We are not comfortable facing our own mortality as a species and we hide our fear of death under a façade of bravado and confidence. Our mortality is a part of our culture no matter where we live humans have adapted their customs around death and our mortality. Some embrace it such as the Dia De Los Muertos in Hispanic culture and some try to hide that it exists by ignoring it completely like in Western culture. No matter who you are or how you like to think you deal with your own mortality the same holds true for everyone, every human hides from their own mortality in some way and until we are faced with the inevitable end we like to think we are exempt. (548)