For a number of years I have assigned Sophocles' Antigone to a class of college freshmen, and have observed that students who respond most to this young woman are often those who have faced or are facing big personal challenges. These students like and identify with the play's protagonist, especially her belief—or "faith" as they sometimes refer to it—that she is doing right. At the same time, students who have perhaps been less challenged are amazed by their classmates support of Antigone, and find her whiny, weak, as well as arrogant. These class discussions have caused me to think more deeply about issues of suffering and faith. I've also come to appreciate more deeply the accuracy and comfort of a succinct promise by the founder of this publication, Mary Baker Eddy, "Truth is always the victor."Science and Health, p. 380.
When the play opens, Antigone has led what would be for anyone an unbearably painful life, and as the play unfolds, it becomes clear that her life is about to end unfairly in an equally horrible death. Despite her and her family's shameful and tragic history, which includes betrayal, murder, incest, and suicide—and almost no normal human ties or happiness—Antigone inspires an audience, perhaps precisely because there appears to be little besides her own conviction in right doing that prevents her succumbing to the injustice, humiliation, and loneliness she endures.
As she is led offstage to her death, no one shows pity, and it is Antigone herself who must summon the strength to withstand the self-pity, terror, anger, and sorrow that would engulf her. She laments her many losses. She will never again see the sunlight, never know marriage, never have children, and her broken heart grieves over her friendlessness and homelessness. Earlier her sister remarks, "the wits that they are born with/do not stay firm for the unfortunate./They go astray." Antigone does appear to get very near the edge of what one of Shakespeare's characters calls "neglected love," See Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1. when she asks: "What law of God have I broken?" and "Whom should I summon as ally?" But here is what never ceases to astonish me—and others as I gather from their responses. In the face of utter meanness and cruelty, Antigone does not fall victim to hate. She is afraid, close at moments to hysteria, nearly crushed by anguish, but she does not give in to bitterness. And it seems to be only what might be called a little thing that sustains her. "Those who think rightly will think I did right," she declares. Her last words, dignified like those of a queen she might have been, are, "I gave reverence to what claims reverence." Sophocles, "Antigone," The Complete Greek Tragedies, Ed. David Grene and Richard Lattimore (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1991) ,
