If you haven't sorted out the posting stuff yet, you can post your weekly response to the week Two readings here--these include Antigone, Brecht's Antigone, the Kowalki article, and the Johnson article from the list of discovery task articles.
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I found Bertolt Brecht's poem "The Antigone Legend" to be a very confusing but interesting read. One thing that grabbed me was Brecht's portrayal of Creon (spelled with a "K" in the poem) as a tyrant who was, above all, hungry for power. In lecture for Humanities Core, we have been learning about other possible motives for Creon's stubborn actions. For example, just as Antigone was sincerely standing up for her beliefs in the "laws of the gods," Creon was sincerely defending the laws of the State, which as the king, it was his responsibility to do anyway. He was , according to some scholars or commentators, merely doing his job and justly using his authority.
In the brief introduction before the text of the poem in our HCC readers, Judith Malina writes, "Brecht himself used [the poem] as a rehearsal device intended to develop objectivity in the actors' performances" (187). If I understand the word "objectivity" correctly, it involves a tone of neutrality. How can the poem be objective if it seems to uphold the image of Antigone as the moral one, the "legend," who mesmerizes (if not dissuades) the Elders and her uncle with her wise, self-assured comebacks. Brecht takes this image of Antigone and contrasts it starkly with Creon's hardheartedness. To illustrate the evil of Creon's consuming thirst for control, Brecht compares him to a "monster," in the thirteenth stanza (188). Apparently, even the Elders saw their king in this way. And yet they "looked at [Antigone] coldly and stood by the tyrant" (188).
Much of the dialogue made little sense to me. Then again, I have only read the poem once. Perhaps more than one re-reading will help clear things up a bit.
Search for the Fallen in a Now-Quiet Forest
Erwin Kowalke is a man who digs up the bones and remains of Germans and Russians who died during World War II. While reading this article, I recognized various similarities and differences to Sophocles Antigone. Kowalke, unlike Creon, believes that people should be given a proper burial regardless of who they were. When people argue with Kowalke and ask him how he can properly bury a Russian after all they have done to us (the Germans) he replies: “The dead deserve a bit of honor. They were mostly all young, you know.” Creon on the other hand, believes that traitors should never receive the same burial as a patriot. The main obstacle that Kowalke faces is that he is not able to give them a completely proper burial because he is unable to identify most of the bones. The factor that stands in Antigone’s way of giving her brother a proper burial is her uncle. Antigone and Kowalke are both burying the dead however, each of them has a different reasoning. Kowalke believes that the dead should be honored regardless of their background. He says “no matter what this generation did, without them you wouldn’t be here.” Antigone is burying her brother for religious purposes. She defies Creon’s edict because to her, the laws of the God’s hold a higher precedence than Creon’s man-made law.
After reading the article “Search for the Fallen in a Now- Quiet Forest” by Jeffrey Fleishman, I was very moved and inspired by the most admirable Erwin Kowalke, who spends his days digging up the remains of unidentified Soldier’s from World War II and giving them a proper burial. I was most intrigued with Kowalke because of the mindset he has when approaching such a dismal task each day. Although Kowalke is 65 years old, he is fueled with the ambition of taking on such a rigorous process because of the greater product of justice and good he accomplishes. And despite the fact that Kowalke will be getting dirty, everyday, “his coveralls are neat and pressed and his boots, like those he recalls on his father, are shiny”. I just find his dedication and demeanor in which he digs up these soldiers to be most honorable and, in a sense to some small extent, a bit of redemption for the inhumane actions that caused these deaths. “I excavate Russian soldiers too… Some Germans get mad at me for that…it doesn’t matter whether they’re Russian or German to me. The dead deserve a bit of honor.” Despite his German heritage and personal family involvement with the war, Kowalke is able to look past all that and focus on what truly matters, and that is giving a name to those who sacrificed themselves for the benefit of others. For me such selflessness and commitment truly embodies those characteristics of a hero.
Upon reading Jeffrey Fleishman’s “Search For The Fallen In A Now-Quiet Forest,” I was able to find many similarities in relation to Sophocles’ Antigone. When Kowalke responds “I excavate Russian soldiers too…some Germans get mad at me for that” (Fleishman 236). This statement by Kowalke relates to Antigone’s actions for burying Polynices; that even though he did fight for the opposing side, he still deserved a proper burial: Creon asks Antigone how can she respectfully bury a man who is an enemy to her land, “Then how can you render his enemy such honors, such impieties in his eyes” (Sophocles 85). Kowalke’s actions are like Antigone’s, where he believes that every man, whether or not they were Russian or German, traitor or hero, good or bad; every person deserves a proper burial. Kowalke does not wait for another person to take action to give those people a proper burial, he takes action into his own hands, collects the bones, and has them buried, “the bones are reburied, sometimes in a small ceremony” (Fleishman 236). Like Kowalke, Antigone took action into her own hands and did not wait for somebody else to bury her brother Polynices, or worse not be buried at all. She risked going against the words of the law in order to give her brother the proper burial he deserved.
In the article "Search for the Fallen in a Now-Quiet Forest," it can be seen that Erwin Kowalke has the same perspectives on the importance of proper burial as Antigone does. Although these dead bodies have already been buried, they weren't buried with honor and the proper rituals. These bodes were "pushed into bomb craters, others were flung into rough graves dug by men in a hurry. The dead were lost." These young men fought for the countries, yet they weren't given the proper burial that they deserved. As Kowalke digs up the bones of the dead soldiers, he gives them the honor they deserve by burying them in a cemetary where they can be honored and respected. Even though most of the bones cannot be identified, they are still honored and can rest in peace because they have been buried properly. When someone is just left dead in the ground to be buried quickly or by the dust naturally blowing, there is no state of peace for the dead and for the ones they left. For example, when Kowalke found an old lady's husband's bones, she now had peace because she knew that his body was found and that he can be buried properly.
Antigone had the same perspective on burying the dead. Besides the fact that she was burying her brother, she was also burying a traitor. Both Antigone and Kowalke believed that no matter who they fought for or how they died, the "dead deserve a big of honor." There would be no peace for Antigone or the body if she had let her brother's body rot above the earth while the dogs and other animals ate away his body.
Antigone and Kowalke both buried the dead and marked it above the ground so that people know where they lie, giving them a chance to be honored and visited.
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