What is the reversal of the play in 'Antigone'?

Answer 1

When Theban King Creon orders that a proper burial be given to the body of Polyneices and that Antigone be released from her cave is the point at which the reversal occurs in the play "Antigone" by ancient Greek playwright Sophocles (495 B.C.E. - 405 B.C.E.).

Specifically, the reversal in a play refers to the point at which the course of events are changed by the action being stopped in one direction and taking up in a completely opposite sense. In the play's final scene (exodus), Creon changes his mind about the edict that he issues at the play's beginning and that he insists upon enforcing through much of the play. Previously, Creon says that his nephew Polyneices, for having betrayed Thebes, must be left to the ravages of inclement weather and hungry birds and dogs and that his niece Antigone, for having buried her brother Polyneices, must be punished.

Once Creon realizes that a tragedy has been set in motion and that it will affect even his own wife and son, he moves from single-minded enforcement to abandonment of the provisions and consequences of his own edict. This reversal changes the course of events by ending the pollution that afflicts all Thebes and by respecting the will of the gods in terms of according burial to all Thebans, whether they die loyal or disloyal to their city.

What the reversal does not stop is the death of Antigone.