The Outsider In Antigone

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“There’s no room for pride, not in a slave, not with the lord and master standing by.” (Sophocles, ll. 534-535) says Creon as Antigone explains why she’s defied his decree and buried her brother. This quotation is one of many that builds up the path to Antigone’s exclamation that she is a stranger, as Creon compares her to a “slave” or a “spirited [horse]” (Sophocles, l. 532). The first of these comparisons already implies or leads the reader to the idea of an outsider, as slaves typically are not of Greek birth though if they are, are not considered Greek citizens either way. Furthermore, Creon mentions that the slave cannot be prideful if “the lord and master [are] standing by,” which would imply that the slave could be prideful, but only …show more content…
The Chorus says this in the following quotation: “alone, no mortal like you, ever, you go down to the halls of Death alive and breathing.” (Sophocles, ll. 13-14). This would reinforce the notion that she is alone or that she is an outsider in the realm of the dead, where all who wander it are truly dead. Antigone follows by comparing herself to Niobe, who also suffers a similar fate to that of Antigone’s as she has also lost all of her children at the hands of the gods due to her own pride or her hubris, where she has defied the norms or conventions just as Antigone has and is what inevitably brings both of their downfall. “Stranger queen from the east” ( ), Antigone calls Niobe at the beginning of the passage. Niobe is the daughter of a Lydian who married Amphion, one of two brothers who usurped the throne of Thebes from Antigone’s ancestor Laius, which would explain the reference. By comparing herself to an ancient queen of Thebes who was also not from Thebes herself, it would suggest that she sees herself as much as an outsider as Niobe was, and has also made the connection that what is happening to her in the present is a reflection or a near-reflection of what has happened in the
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