SOPHOCLES’ ANTIGONE — ANNIHILATION OF THE FUTURE IN THE OEDIPUS EPIC

Violating her uncle Creon’s capital crime decree, Antigone honors reverence to the gods by providing a burial for her brother Polyneices, who died in mortal combat with his brother over the loss of shared kingship of Thebes. The two brothers killed each other in combat. Her uncle Creon decreed that Polyneices be left unburied — the traditional penalty for rebellion — on pain of death for anyone violating his decree.

Antigone by Sophocles shows the final violations of the Oedipus epic’s stark imperative — reverence for the higher order under which all live. 

Sophocles’ plays show characters managing religious, political, cultural, familial, and individual forces around them, working through recognizably psychological positions strikingly similar to analytical psychology’s approach to emotional development.

 

Dr. Woodruff engages people in plays by inviting participants to join in dramatic readings, so they can feel what it’s like to be in Creon’s position or Antigone’s.

 

 

PAUL WOODRUFF, PhD, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas, has advanced degrees from Princeton and Oxford University, and served in Vietnam with military combat experience. He has translated Antigone and collaborated with Peter Meineck on the other works of Sophocles. His books include: The Necessity of Theater; First Democracy; Reverence; and The Garden of Leaders.

 KAREN NAIFEH, PhD, is an analyst member of the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco in private practice. Her interest in classics centers on their offering a key resource for professional skill development in cultural context. She holds doctorates in medical physiology and clinical psychology. Formerly an adjunct assistant professor of psychiatry at UCSF, she did research in physiology of consciousness.

SAM NAIFEH, MD, analyst member of the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco and in private practice in San Mateo and San Francisco, CA.  His special interests include psychological roots of practice in ancient cultures and classics; his forthcoming paper is entitled: "Annihilation of the Future in the Oedipus Epic". His practice subspecialty writing in addiction medicine and psychiatry explores cultural patterns in substance use disorder and recovery.