The battle between natural and man-made law rages in the center of the dramatic arena, but the desire of its major characters or representatives is, according to René Girard, a triangular one that does not come about spontaneously, but is according to another; in Creon's case a collective error with the outcome an interplay between actors within a defined social, pre-existing situation; desire is an intermediate cause, a potential instability in the community, an insoluble conflict. Antigone's desire is both according to another and to herself, thus fulfilling the concept of the tragic hero, the tragic flaw if you will, that focuses the nobility of action on her who cannot function within the limitations of a man-made order. "In order for the state to function, the superiority of legal institutions is proffered over the mercurial divine order . . . " and "it is through the recognition of the inferiority of the mythic order to the law that the myth that grounds the law is seemingly repudiated . . . ," and "accordingly, in order for the legal codes to operate they must mystify their violent connection to myth/religion". The eternal quest for divine law to be the basis for man's is a bedeviled one at best. The distinction between good and evil becomes a superficial one being mystified, and the practical good is "only conceivable and adequate in the limited universe of human laws".

Desire can always be portrayed by a simple straight line which joins subject and object. The mediator, or other, though, is always there (community or divine order) expressing a triple relationship, the triangle. But the object that changes with each adventure (Polynices' burial) does not affect this triple relationship; the spatial metaphor of the triangle that remains is no Gestalt. The real structures are inter- subjective, and the triangle has no reality whatever. This alludes to the mystery of human relations. Human reality can be systematized up to a point and degrades itself into an incipient logic, however irrational or chaotic it may appear. Thus Frederich Nietzsche's statement that " primordial desire cannot be resolved into a logos that demands purity . . . " can be refuted along these lines, and the performance of duty, an effort which originates in desire and is in and of itself irrational, show the two con- tenders here no more or less corrupted by desire than the other, and the observation that Antigone's choice catapults her motives into "a 'bad infinite' that could not be made true by resolution . . . " does not end the notion that her actions cannot be justified by divine law. It is not true that if the decision to act in the name of divine law stems "from desire at all, resolution would break down, and ethical purities would be choked". Though passion contains neither purity nor reason, and though Antigone confuses her passionate defiance with an acceptable reverence of the gods, her act can be seen as neither asocial nor particular, nor part of a non-human force. Antigone's subjective feeling plus duty lead to an ecstatic reconciliation. In her motivation and justification can be seen a "shadowy knowledge from a dialectic that weaves particularity and universality". The tragic hero is "responsible through action and intransigence for the tragic consequences." This action makes greatness possible but brings about a fall which is both defeat and glory. She shares the perspective of the isolated scapegoat, and the ethics of desire are not an abstract principle but a shadowy phenomena. Antigone counts on divine justice when she says in line 118 "once I suffer I will know I was wrong." The Chorus says she is "a law unto herself." The uniqueness of this defiance is the only source of the heroic will, but the alternative for her is intolerable.

"Juridical definitions consign to human action unavoidable consequences, and desire manifests itself in its purest expression as something that is projected beyond human law". Aristotle in his Poetics I states "[H]e that is incapable of society makes no part of a city as a beast or god." Moreover, he says, "[W]hosoever is naturally and not accidentally unfit for society must be either inferior or superior to man." The theory of heroic will figures in the delineation of the antisocial spirit. But there is in tragic pathos the painful recognition that the opposing ethical law, that of the state, is also her own. "The hero must choose to act in accordance with one of two conflicting principles". Tragic reconciliation depends on the advance of specific ethical powers out of their opposition to their true harmony, and the dialectic goes on until it incorporates every interruption into the service of the spirit, for the opposing laws are equally valid. This play is not, therefore, simply about tragic hero- ine who lets personal desire warp her pure, godlike intentions to honor her family or the gods, nor is there simply a conflict between human versus natural law in the con- text of what is just. The inner action of the play goes much "[b]eyond these literary dimensions". Antigone can no longer remain in the world of common good and harbors little concern for life among the living. According to Mohammad Kowsar, she goes beyond human limits, defying time and its imperative of change and must play her fate not against 'dike', the law ordained by gods, but against the chthonic dictum of 'ate', another order quite distinct from terrestrial laws and the separate justice of gods. 'Ate' can be defined as "[a] primordial signifier that preexists in an articulated form like an arc of nothingness over the parenthetical moment of life". It is perhaps better described as an aberration of the mind as related to darkness, the spirit of error which leads to defilement, punishment, and death, and criminal waywardness, a zone where life and death encroach on each other's domains. Her vision is one of supremely tragic ethical lucidity, and she operates in a borderline dimension "[f]ree of all material and worldly attachments. She has structured a relationship between this side and beyond and sets herself in relationship to that which aspires to a point beyond 'ate'. She is at 'the limit', at the very place where the "other finds legitimacy, at the site of primordial metaphoric ordinances". From this position one can tell the difference between the laws of the state and those associated with the gods. In this relationship of hero and the beyond, exists the painful truth which fascinates and promotes a pure desire for death and nothingness. She is justified in the supernatural sense and stands in for the rest of humanity representing the will of the unknown senses. The course of time and life, including man-made laws, stands in contrast to this realm. Antigone has transgressed the cosmic limits of earthly propriety and stands on the precipice of immortality and timelessness meeting a typically tragic end.