What is the message of Sophocles Antigone?
A central theme of Antigone is the tension between individual action and fate. While free choices, such as Antigone’s decision to defy Creon’s edict, are significant, fate is responsible for ma…
How do you analyze Antigone?
Antigone, who has been described as “the first heroine of Western drama,” has been interpreted both as a heroic martyr to conscience and as a willfully stubborn fanatic who causes her own death and that of two other innocent people, forsaking her duty to the living on behalf of the dead.
How is Antigone political?
Antigone serves as a threat to the status quo. She gives up her life out of her commitment to principles above human law—moral law. Creon believes that the laws created by the King must be obeyed no matter how big or small they are. Creon argues that the law created by the King is the platform for justice.
What is Antigone to Polyneices?
Polyneices is the brother of Antigone, Ismene and Eteocles. His name means ‘many troubles’, and he’s generally remembered as ‘the bad brother’, because he attacked Thebes with a foreign army.
What does Creon symbolize in Antigone?
Antigone and Creon act as symbols of honoring the gods versus honoring man. Antigone will not turn away from the gods, while Creon insists that you must obey the laws of man. Teiresias also acts as a symbol of the will of the gods.
How did Creon abuse his power?
Creon abused his power by thinking that he can change or brake the laws of the Gods and not allowing other people to brake his laws. He did not want to burry Polyneices’ body, but one of the God’s law is that every human deserves to be buried after death not depending what that certain person did in his lifetime.
What are Antigone character traits?
She is strong, passionate, and full of love; sometimes to a fault; she feels a heaviness of duty to her family name and to the Gods, and to her, they are one and the same; fearless and thoughtful, takes risks, and is quick to judge; empowered by her defiance, she is proud, sensitive, and open, which gives her a …
How does Antigone influence modern society?
The ideas Sophocles presents in Antigone have relevance in today’s world, and indicate that modern society is not as advanced as we believe. The problems of gender equality, democratic voice, and religious faith still resonate today. Antigone attempts to show the strength women have in the face of male authority.
How does Antigone see public opinion?
Antigone believes the public sees her fate as just. She says “why do you all insult me now right to my face?” when speaking to the chorus. This comes after she compared herself to Niobe and the chorus reminds her she is human, not a goddess.
What happened between Eteocles and Polynices?
As time passed, and the two sons aged, Eteocles claimed the throne for himself, exiling his older brother Polyneices. Polyneices then gathered a giant army and attacked Eteocles for the throne. Neither of the two sons won because they both ended up killing each other in battle.
What happens to Polynices body?
Outside the city gates, Antigone tells Ismene that Creon has ordered that Eteocles, who died defending the city, is to be buried with full honors, while the body of Polynices, the invader, is left to rot. Furthermore, Creon has declared that anyone attempting to bury Polynices shall be publicly stoned to death.
What does Antigone look like in the first scene?
Antigone. In the first moments of the play, Antigone is opposed to her radiant sister Ismene. Unlike her beautiful and docile sister, Antigone is scrawny, sallow, withdrawn, and recalcitrant brat. Like Anouilh’s Eurydice, the heroine of his play Eurydice, and Joan of Arc, Antigone has a boyish physique and curses her girlhood.
How is Creon a practical man in Antigone?
A practical man, he firmly distances himself from the tragic aspirations of Oedipus and his line. As he tells Antigone, his only interest is in political and social order. Creon is bound to ideas of good sense, simplicity, and the banal happiness of everyday life.
Is Antigone a tragic heroine?
Antigone Antigone is the play’s tragic heroine. In the first moments of the play, Antigone is opposed to her radiant sister Ismene. Unlike her beautiful and docile sister, Antigone is scrawny, sallow, withdrawn, and recalcitrant brat.
What is the message of Antigone by Sophocles?
Antigone explores a fundamental rift between public and private worlds. The central opposition in the play between Antigone and Creon, between duty to self and duty to state, dramatizes critical antimonies in the human condition. Sophocles’ genius is his resistance of easy and consoling simplifications to resolve the oppositions.