Sophocles, Antigone

Background:

Antigone is daughter of the incestuous union of Oedipus and Jocasta and sister of Ismene and of Eteocles and Polynices who killed each other in the battle of the seven against Thebes. The play opens at dawn.

Background reading:

Aeschylus, Seven against Thebes

Later reading:

Euripides, Phoenissae

Sophocles, Oedipus the King and Oedipus at Colonus

Study Questions for second journal entry:

1. Who is the protagonist? Is it Creon? Is it Antigone? Can there be more than one focus?

Note that there cannot be more than one protagonist. Protagonist is a technical word meaning "first actor", "first contestant" and each play can have only one. How would you divide the roles among the three actors most effectively? There are three actors besides the chorus (the chorus leader is part of the chorus and not a separate actor). Each actor may have several different parts and it is even possible that the same character may be divided between two actors. How would you divide the parts among:

2. How does Sophocles make clear which side is right? Notice especially Teiresias' speeches and the vivid description of the decaying corpse. Is one side totally right and the other altogether wrong? Is it clear from the beginning which side is in the right? Note that to refuse burial to traitors was customary.

3. What purpose does the presence of Ismene serve? What causes her change of heart after Antigone is arrested? Do we know more about Antigone because we have a less heroic sister to compare her with? How does Ismene compare to the sister (Chrysothemis) in the Electra of Sophocles?

4. Can you explain Antigone's speech at lines 891-928? Does it contradict the principle for which she is dying? Does it make her seem more human? Is she suffering a change of heart?

5. Collect Antigone's motives. Why is she given so many motives? Do any of her motives contradict each other?

It is not merely on religious grounds that Antigone opposes Creon: everything that she has and feels is thrown into the conflict--her religious beliefs, her love for her brother, her physical revulsion against the horror, her loyalty to her family, her indignation that a comparative outsider should presume to interfere in a rite that concerns only the nearest of kin. H. D. F. Kitto

6. Find examples of Antigone's possessiveness. Her use of "my, mine" for example.

7. Find references made by Antigone to her choice of death.

8. Notice any development in the chorus. When and how do they begin to show divided sympathies?

9. What is wrong with Creon's attitude? If Antigone had tried persuasion instead of defiance what would have happened? Is there any reason to believe that he would have listened to her, a woman and an adolescent at that? What kind of argument finally makes Creon change his mind? What seem to be Creon's greatest fears?

10. Is it important and if so, why is it important that we know that Antigone is betrothed to Haemon? Who first brings up this betrothal? Why is reference to it postponed for so long? What is the purpose of Haemon's role? From his first speech what do we expect of him?

11. If the chorus were a chorus of women instead of men how would the play be different?

12. What exactly is the function of the chorus in this play? Examine each choral ode in its context. What comes before and what comes after it? How does it effect our feelings about the scenes surrounding it and the characters at odds in the scenes?

13. Does Antigone do anything wrong? Is she ever mistaken in word or deed? Is her assessment of Creon always correct?

14. Explain the two burials of Polynices.

15. Follow Creon's argument closely: what is the purpose of his decree not to bury Polynices? Can you defend Creon? Does he ever seem right? When does he become clearly wrong (or does he)?

16. Why is the opening scene so effective: what point of view does it offer? How much does it determine our feelings?

17. Does the entrance of the chorus do anything to change the focus from one of private concern to a more public concern?

18. Examine and comment on the two triangular scenes (i.e. scenes with three characters).

19. Why is Antigone so completely excluded from the end? Her body is not even brought back.

20. What is the role of the gods in the play?

21. Who finally suffers the greatest loss?

22. Follow the public-private polarity throughout. Notice two ends focus on the disintegration of the family.

23. How would you divide the parts among the actors? Which characters present Antigone's point of view? Are there any characters who present Creon's point of view? How about the chorus?

24. Consider the assumptions the characters make about each other.

 

Alternative journal assignment

Outline the play. For an expanded outline (of the Alcestis) see appendix II. Include in the outline one of these topics:

 

Notes on the Choral Odes of the Antigone

The choral odes in the Antigone are considered by many critics to be among the finest examples of Greek lyric poetry.

I Parodos: victory and salvation of the city. The ode brings in the public theme as opposed to the private theme and setting of the prologue. Consider the contrast: the two girls (young teenagers) make their sad, lonely exits, Antigone by the long parodos, Ismene reenters the palace. The chorus enters, filling the orchestra and greeting the day with a song of joy, success, and victory.

II "wonders are many" ... deina is an ambiguous word ("wonders": dreadful, strange, terrible, clever things). Notice that this ode occurs between the two entrances of the guard. This is a wonderful example of Sophoclean irony: we know who committed the crime. Creon and the chorus do not know and can only speculate about the author of this treason. As often the chorus "thinks" it is talking about one thing, but is really talking about something else.

The country's laws and the laws of heaven: these two ought to match. But there is an imbalance. The tyrant makes his own laws, a cliché, but an apt one.

III The fall of the house of Labdacus in this play reaches its conclusion, taking another branch, Creon's family, with it. Notice the placement of this ode: Antigone has just been sentenced to death. After the chorus has finished, enter Haemon, the last of Creon's sons (in the Phoenissae, his other son sacrificed himself to save the city in the war just past).

IV Love. Haemon has not talked about love; Creon has made some crude (but typical) remarks about sex. Haemon has just left to die (saying that he will never see his father again). In the next scene Antigone will make her last entrance. Love is not something that two men can argue about; but it is there and that is why the chorus sings about it. It is one of the natural laws that Creon thought he could control or disregard. But love cannot be ignored.

V Mythological song: people confined, blindings, crimes against the family.

VI Hymn to Bacchus to save the city. There is a Theban connection to Bacchus. Anything else?

 

Some notes on the Divine Element in the Antigone

For a reasonable view, a good essay to read is H. D. F. Kitto, Sophocles: Dramatist and Philosopher.

Also read (or reread) Zeus' words about Aegisthus at the opening of the Odyssey before you blame the gods for everything.

The gods in the plays are as a group a representation of the way things are. The Greeks did not have trouble with what to us is an inconsistency: gods can be both anthropomorphic individuals depicted in painting and sculpture and in stories and addressed in prayer as if they could change the outcome of something and they can be personified abstractions or forces. Aphrodite is a beautiful and feminine goddess, but her name can also be a synonym for "desire" (sexual passion and other kinds of desire including the madness for war).

The Greek gods, as Kitto points out, are immanent rather than transcendent. They are part of the human world. They do not represent the world as it ought to be, but as it is.

DikE, justice, retribution, balance is a stable condition of the universe. A violent action, a denial or order or custom sets it wrong and it must be (that is it is in the natural order of things that it be) set right.

DikE is a force in nature and a force in human affairs.

Human action is the field within which dike is to be seen working; therefore the human drama must be, as indeed it is, lifelike, self-sufficient, and convincing. The divine participation ... is set alongside it in order to show that the particular action is also a universal. Kitto

Prophecy, in Sophocles--and in Shakespeare too--is the denial of chaos. Kitto

The gods in the plays do not have to do with the playwrights' beliefs. To deny their power and their effect on human life is as pointless as to deny the law of gravity. Even in the Hippolytus, a belief in the existence of Aphrodite is not in question. To apply moral judgments to the gods is equally faulty. Again in the Hippolytus, when the old servant tells Aphrodite that she ought to forgive Hippolytus because it is natural for young people to be impetuous and that gods should be wiser than people, he is as much in the dark about the nature of gods as his young master is. If the gods are cruel, it also happens that at time life seems cruel. If virtue is not (or does not appear to be) rewarded, that happens too. On the other hand ...