This scene dramatizes the powerful conflict between divine law and civil law that has been building from the opening of the play. When Creon and Antigone face each other, their separate beliefs bring them quickly and passionately to matters of life and death.
Antigone’s argument calls for obedience to divine law at all costs. Creon is not Zeus, she declares, and he cannot overturn divine law by civil proclamation. Her thinking is unassailable—of course the dead have burial rights, a basic decency upheld by long tradition.
Inwardly, Creon admits this when he mutters that he must discipline Antigone or risk losing his authority and—he fears—even his manhood. He cannot answer her argument rationally, so he must crush her. “She is the man / If this victory goes to her and she goes free” (541–542), he seethes, and his rage propels him into action that will ultimately doom his whole family.
This scene once again emphasizes Antigone’s love for death. Unmoved by Creon’s distinction between Eteocles and Polynices—the patriot and the traitor, in his view—Antigone says simply that she chooses to love rather than to hate. Exasperated, Creon mocks Antigone’s resolve to face execution with a bitter curse: “love the dead!” (593).
