Suicide

There are two way of taking bad news. One way is to accept it and live on. The other way is to refuse to tolerate it and kill yourself. In the play Antigone, many characters chose the latter.

Jocasta, after realizing her husband was really her son, committed suicide. “His mother and wife at once: she twisted the cords that strangled her life.” (Antigone 1.1.40-41) She could have been overcome with grief, or embarrassment. Finding our that the man you love is against your moral cant be easy, and even harder is explaining it to everyone. But suicide is just the coward way out, no matter what your situation is.

Even killing yourself over honour is cowardly. Antigone, who was a much braver character than Jocasta, was committed of treason. She was sentenced to live in a stone chamber where she would slowly starve to death. Antigone accepted her fate- “It will not be the worst of deaths- death without honour.”- but she ended up giving into fear, and followed in her mother’s footsteps by strangling herself. (Antigone 1.1.81) Once again, fear overpowered heroism.

In Jocasta’s case, her fear was the decrease of her self-image. Antigone feared the pain of death, yet there is a more tangible aspect of fear; the fear of loss. Haemon was Antigone’s fiancé, and when his father, the King Creon, sentenced Antigone to death, Haemon threatened him with suicide. “Then she must die. But her death will cause another.” (Antigone 1.3.119) Haemon is afraid of living life without Antigone, so he chose to commit suicide with an impression of romance. Yet, call it what you want, it’s still cowardly.

Fear drives people to commit suicide, which makes them cowardly. They have no hope, or else they wouldn’t be so afraid. And they have no zest, or else they wouldn’t be such milquetoast characters. There is a saying- “look for the silver lining,” – meaning no matter how bad things are, eventually they will get better, but that’s exactly what you have to do- look.