fortunately, Kitto goes on to say that Hegel's view of Antigone is "preposterous." Hegel says that something is "seriously wrong" with Antigone, while Kitto counters with the statement that "only Hegel can tell us" what Antigone's "blemish" is (Kitto 129). I have to agree with Hegel here. Antigone takes a principle, valid or not, and rams it down everyone's throat with her words and deeds. She is a glory hound and a would-be martyr. She does not need to announce her deed, or be caught doing it; she chooses this course of action. She invades a camp of guards and manages to bury a body and leave no tracks. She surely must know that the body will be uncovered at some point, so why does she not consider her duty done after the first burial? Or, since she is so adept at sneaking around, why not remove the body and bury it somewhere it will never be discovered? Did she intend to check the body every day to make sure it was still buried? Her actions are nonsensical and illogical unless they are specifically engineered to say, "Here I am, the only one doing the right thing, so punish me! I am better than all of you!" There in no loyalty to her brother in her behavior.On to Hegel: Macbeth is as "far removed" as possible from Antigone, but is still "of one nature" (Bradley 89) with it. The death of Macbeth is much less tragic than Antigone, because Macbeth wasn't essentially a good man. Antigone was following the edicts of the gods in burying her brother and was doing rightly as far as she knew. I would agree that Macbeth's death is less tragic, yet I feel worse for him than I do for Antigone. At least Macbeth was an emotive, passionate man, not a righteous machine.Hegel believes that all other things in tragedies being equal, the tragedy with the hero as a good man is more tragic than as a bad. The more spiritual value, i.e. Antigone doing her deed for spiritual purposes, the more tragedy in conflict and waste. The more evil a character, the les...
