The Verdict of the Antigone
| Author | Roger S. Fisher |
| Pages | 131-147 |
■{
SEVEN
>
The
Verdict
of
the
Antigone
LEGAL
DISCOURSE
THEORY
looks
at
how
people
speak
and
behave
when
it
comes
to
the
question
of
performing
justice
in
law
and
in
life.
Reading
die
Antigone
as
a
play
in
which
Antigone
and
Creon
engage
in
discourse
strategy
and
discourse
shifting
permits
us
to
reconsider
the
manner
in
which
they
both
argue
their
cases
and
helps
to
explain
why
they
each
failed,
in
their
own
way,
to
prevail.
1
Antigone
and
Creon
appear
to
be
confident
and
competent
in
their
respective
discourses
(religious
law
and
man-made
law)
at
the
outset
of
the
play,
but
as
the
play
progresses
and
reaches
its
climax,
they
both
come
to
the
realization
that
they
have
failed
to
perform
their
legal
discourses
successfully
(demonstrated
by
their
in
ability
to
persuade
anyone
else
to
go
along
with
them).
The
predomin
ant
discourse
in
the
first
half
of
the
play
is
man-made
law,
and
Antigone
must
defend
herself
in
the
context
of
that
discourse,
but
she
is
ultimate
ly
defeated.
The
second
half
is
dominated
by
the
discourse
of
religious
law,
and
Creon
must
react
in
the
context
of
that
discourse,
but
he
is
also
defeated.
Antigone
and
Creon
are
not
truly
listening
to
their
interlocu
tors
(or
rather,
they
cannot,
because
they
are
bound
by
the
web
of
fate
that
Sophocles
has
spun
for
them
in
creating
a
plot
that
hurries
them
to
their
final
destinations)
.
Creon
and
Antigone
talk
past
each
other.
Creon,
representing
law,
tells
Antigone
that
even
an
unjust
law
must
be
obeyed.
Antigone
says
to
Creon,
in
effect,
“
tell
me
what
the
law
is,
and
I
will
tell
you
if
I
will
obey.
”
Their
recourse
is
a
common
strategy
in
discourse
[131]
Antigone
v.
Creon
conflicts,
as
each
attempts
to
switch
discourses,
but
this
turns
out
to
be
a
futile
strategy
for
both
of
them.
They
are
each
defeated
on
the
ground
of
their
opponents
discourse
when
they
violate
the
norms
of
that
discourse
and
are
shown
to
lack
competence.
“
Sophocles,
”
Aristotle
is
reported
to
have
said,
“
portrayed
men
as
they
ought
to
be,
Euripides
portrayed
men
as
they
are.
”
1
The
quotation
is
often
misinterpreted
to
mean
that
Sophocles
presented
characters
who
were
more
idealistic
than
in
real
life.
But
a
closer
examination
reveals
that
Aristotle
is
not
speaking
about
the
kind
of
people
that
Sophocles
depicts
but
the
kind
of
things
that
they
do
in
accordance
with
their
character
(or
as
Aristotle
himself
put
it,
quoting
one
of
the
seven
wise
sages,
“
rule
un
masks
the
ruler
”
).
3
When
the
Leader
of
the
Chorus
tells
Creon
towards
the
end
of
the
play,
“
I
think
you
have
learned
—
perhaps
too
late
—
the
meaning
of
justice
”
(lines
1313-14),
he
uses
an
ambiguous
word
(dike)
for
justice
that
can
also
mean
a
verdict
in
a
court
of
law,
a
civil
lawsuit,
or,
when
capitalized,
the
name
of
the
goddess
who
personifies
justice
in
the
aspirational
sense
of
the
word.
The
Leader
of
the
Chorus
is
not
making
a
jurisprudential
conclusion
about
justice
in
the
abstract
sense
but
rather
an
observation
about
what
has
transpired,
as
if
to
say,
“
this
is
the
out
come
of
your
actions,
and
it
has
something
to
do
with
justice.
”
4
That
is
the
ambiguous
verdict
or
dike
of
the
play.
It
should
come
as
no
surprise
that
the
Antigone
gives
no
clear
defin
ition
for
the
meaning
of
justice,
no
clear
verdict
on
what
has
transpired
on
stage,
because
it
is
a
tragedy,
not
a
work
of
philosophy
or
legal
theory.
The
sixth-century
poet
Simonides,
according
to
Socrates,
“
spoke
in
riddles,
like
poets
do
”
when
discussing
the
meaning
of
justice.
5
If
the
Antigone
sets
out
to
explain
the
meaning
of
justice,
it
only
does
so
in
the
riddling
way
that
is
also
typical
of
Greek
tragedy.
When
the
play
began,
it
seemed
to
be
a
dis
pute
over
specific
questions
of
law
(whether
Antigone
has
a
right,
as
a
sister,
to
bury
Polyneices
and
whether
Creon,
as
a
ruler,
has
a
right
to
prohibit
a
proper
burial
and
display
of
grief
for
Polyneices
and
to
stone
transgressors
to
death
if
they
do
so).
As
the
story
unfolds,
the
Antigone
comes
to
pose
a
much
more
profound
and
open-ended
question,
which
is
whether
the
word
“
justice
”
itself
means
anything
at
all.
This
does
not
deny
the
possibil
ity
of
justice;
it
is
merely
to
say
that
the
meaning
of
justice
is
only
discov
ered
in
the
clarity
of
hindsight.
The
play
may
depict
the
conflict
between
[132]
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