Option 4: Learning Wisdom In Old Age
According to the Webster dictionary, Wisdom is a good sense of judgment and insight. The quote states that without the required wisdom, the decisions that one makes can have significant repercussions and decisions that are supposed to lead to happiness could end up causing the opposite. The lack of the ability to make good judgment on important things can be very dangerous because of this and could even decide between life and death in some situations. Creon’s decisions throughout the play are not based on his wisdom, but on his pride, which leads to him losing everyone that is important to him and he does not understand that he is making bad judgments until the end, when it is too late.
The quote also warns of big words and making bold statements because they will always be punished. By making bold statements that aren’t thought through and can’t be followed through on for certain, one already sets oneself up to be punished. If the statements are not followed through with or things don’t happen as predicted, the results will always backfire on whoever made them and will always at least damage the pride or credibility of that person.
Pride is the high opinion of one’s own importance or superiority. Although pride can be beneficial in some situations it can also do harm, by interfering with one’s judgment of other situations. Because it often impairs the ability of making good judgment, pride and wisdom usually don’t fit together. Where decisions based on wisdom usually cause a generally positive outcome, the decisions based on pride will only turn out an immediate positive outcome for one’s own benefit only. The quote states that proud men will learn to be wise in old age because it is only after the immediate effects wear off, that one can see, whether the decision has been a good one or not and influences future decision making.
The quote is significant to the play because it is a summary to what has happened to Creon during the course of the play. It shows how Creon did not understand the consequences of his decisions until the very end, when it was too late for him to change his mind. While he continued to refuse to reconsider his actions because of his pride, Creon was unable to see that he was creating his own doom. By denying the burial of Polyneices he was losing the respect of his niece, Antigone, who still wanted to bury. Though Antigone buried Polyneices because of her religious views and sorrow for the tragedy that has befallen her family, Creon thinks that she was challenging him personally by breaking the very first law that he has made as the ruler of Thebes. Because of this he sentenced her to death and through that was also losing his son and ultimately his wife.
One of the reasons why Creon was so stubborn about this was that he did not want to change his mind based on a female’s doubts towards him. This was such an important matter because of the time when this play takes place. It was common that men were dominant and that women were subject to their decisions because they weren’t thought of as equal to men then. Because of this he felt challenged by something less than another equal person, which he took as a personal attack on himself. For that reason Creon thought that Antigone was disrespecting him and made it impossible for him to back down from her or even consider what she had to tell him.
Creon was so set in his ways that he would not even listen to his son, Haemon, who was engaged with Antigone. When he asked him not to kill her, Creon tells him, that he should be loyal to his father, no matter what his decisions are and refuses to accept what he has to tell him. Haemon was even the first person to point to his father how his actions are unjust and that it might come back to haunt him, when he told him, that the city’s population was of a different opinion than him. Creon answered by saying that he would not listen to him because he is a lot younger than him and cannot have the same wisdom. He also argued that he, as the ruler of Thebes did not have to listen to its people. Haemon was also the first to point out that he would have to grow to be wiser, when he said “Do you see what a young man’s words these are of yours?” (Booth 1149).
It is not until the very end, when it was already too late for Creon to change anything, that he understands the consequences that his decisions have and that he has not made those decisions based on his wisdom, but on his pride. he finally understood what he has done, when he says that he is the one that killed his son and his wife, who have actually killed themselves.
The significance of this quote is that is not only applicable to the play, but also in real life. Most people have based a decision on their pride at least once in their life and could see the mistake that this could be, when they had to take care of the consequences later on. Some people have learned to be wise after a decision that they have made, based on their pride, which has left them to live with the consequences for the rest of their lives. This could include that someone has challenged them to do something that they have agreed to do because of their pride and has left them with some kind of serious injury or even inability. One of the most common examples of such decisions nowadays is that they have agreed to a race and crashed their car during that race.
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