Death Unconquerable

In Antigone by Sophocles, Ode III discusses how love conquers all; love is unconquerable. However the entire play refutes this idea. Three main characters kill themselves due to the circumstances in Sophocles’ play, maybe because they loved one another, but love does not succeed in these situations, death overcomes all of them. Perhaps Ode III should be about death unconquerable. Ode III speaks directly to love. “Surely you swerve upon ruin/ The just man’s …showed first 75 words of 689 total…

…showed last 75 words of 689 total…no bridesong there, nor any music” (219). Antigone will never experience the marital bliss she had intended on. Death will overcome her love for Haimon. “O tomb, vaulted bride-bed in eternal rock, / Soon I shall be with my own again / Where Persephonê welcomes the thin ghosts underground” (221). In Sophocles’ play, love did not conquer all. Love eventually lead to death. Death conquered love. There was never an opportunity for love to stand up to the challenge.