Dramatic Irony In Antigone

In his play Antigone, the author, Sophocles, uses irony to illustrate the power of women versus men and to portray the true nature of pride. Sophocles conveys how damaging and destructive being prideful can be, as in his play it leads to complete familial destruction, but also how this pride is caused by the disobedience and defiance of others, as Antigone disobeys Creon, and he does this through the use of irony, leading the viewer to examine his own life in an attempt to rectify any possible ironic situations that could lead to the same, but minimized, consequences as those found in Antigone. In the play’s opening Antigone is seen grieving over Creon 's law, but it is this prideful action that Creon took that will cause the unravelling of his world by Antigone: a simple yet confident woman. This law that Creon created was that Antigone’s brother Polyneices, who died fighting against Thebes, is not to be buried but to be left out in the open, while her other brother Eteocles, who died fighting for Thebes, is to be allowed a proper burial. The irony of withholding a proper burial from one brother, and not the other, for political reasons, leads to Antigone’s defiance of the law of the King. Antigone decides to bury Polyneices, so he can be granted a safe passage into the world of the dead, and even after hearing the disapproval of her sister Ismene, who is scared of what Creon will do to Antigone once he finds out, she says, “I have longer to please the dead than please