Yes, I completely agree with the Chorus’s view of human life. Whatever the circumstances may be, we can get carried away by our pride. However to me, pride is not just a merit or a satisfaction, but it helps someone believe in themselves. Pride gives people the ability to do what they love to do best and strive at it. In the long run, pride can bring about power, greed, probity and more harmful vices. We fail to realize this until it is too late. Creon got so caught up in his authority and power of the throne, that he misunderstood Antigone. He failed to realize what a big mistake he made until she died. Is so much pride even worth it? It only brings about pain and suffering and for the most part a terrible ending. If Creon remained humble to himself and truly listened to Antigone, then things could have been completely different.
In “Antigone”, Creon and Antigone have a huge sense of pride. Antigone has pride in the fact that she is able to break rules and fight back against a male dominant society. Creon has pride in the fact that he has power over others and the ability to do what he wants.
Each of them are overcome with so much pride, that they fail to realize how much trouble they are causing each other. Sometimes we fail to realize what is right in front of us and in the end we only end up hurting ourselves. Having a little bit of pride is good and allows us to be confident with who we are and what we feel; however, too much pride can result in horrible consequences. Antigone’s pride was too great, that she believed breaking a man’s rule and accepting death was a great feat. But when she lost her life over her pride, just showed me that Antigone was weak. Her strength lied in her ability to fight back for her rights as a woman. Despite her weakness, she did leave an effect on Creon which was good enough. Creon’s pride was his domination over others, but if this resulted in the death of his son and an innocent woman, what use is it to have such pride? Again I ask this same question, but I can’t seem to understand why people act in this way. Instead of pride being a mighty virtue and strength, it ended up being a sign of weakness and destruction. As seen through “Antigone” both Antigone and Creon were destroyed by their pride. Everyone has some sense of pride, I have pride in the fact that I am Indian and lucky enough to have a family and friends who care for me. Maybe this isn’t pride, maybe it’s just me.
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Navneet, I agree with you that pride has two sides. We all want to be able to be proud of ourselves, of our character, our work, our kindness. But as you point out, Sophocles shows us the dangers of uncontrolled or excessive pride, pride that becomes as you say, "a sign of weakness and destruction." Well said.
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