Antigone the Anti-Oedipus

Antigone disregards a clearly-stated law for which the penalty is death, because she considers there to be a higher moral imperative than the law. We may disagree with the ancient Greeks on the specifics, but we can agree that the law is not the greatest authority. One factor that differentiates humans from their cousins is the respect that we accord the dead. Unsurprisingly, Sophocles understood this; Creon's behavior is understandably barbaric. Everyone sees that this is so; thus Sophocles shows that Creon's, the law's, authority is not boundless.

Of course, the Greek concept of justice is pretty screwed up. Oedipus is punished for killing some stranger and marrying a widowed queen after saving her city? If not for that, then he's punished just because some guy made some prophecy? And the gods, who in Antigone are the origin of the righteousness, allow this? It's not just Creon who's inconsistent between the two plays; it's the whole divine side of things as well. Sophocles was making sense with Antigone, but in Oedipus he seems to have taken a completely different stance. It's hard to pass any judgement on either of these works without completely ignoring the other.