Antigone essay

Intro to Antigone    Athenian Democracy         Began in 508 BCE         Setting of Antigone 441 BCE             Therefore, Creon = tyrant (unconstitutional leader in a new democracy)

Sophocles' "trilogy"     Action: 1) Oedipus the King 2) Oedipus at Colonus 3) Antigone    Written: 1) Antigone 2) Oedipus the King 3) Oedipus at Colonus         So technically not a trilogy b/c trilogies have to be written in chronological plot order

You may have read Oedipus in high school or English 1301, but in case you didn’t…

History of Oedipus (via Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus)

[diagram of Corinth, Delphi, Thebes road rage]

    An oracle tells Qn Jocasta and King Laios that their son will murder his father and marry his mother.  Jocasta and Laios decide to leave infant Oedipus out on a hillside. Rumor has it that Jocasta may see to it that Oedipus is found by a shepherd. Whether she arranged it or not, that’s exactly what happens. Oedipus is indeed discovered by a shepherd and given to a family in Corinth to raise.  As many adoption parents decide, they tell him he’s adopted. When Oedipus is an adult, he hears about the prophecy of incest and patricide and leaves Corinth.  He later road rages against Laios (unknown to Oedipus) and kills Laios.  Oedipus goes on to Thebes, which is suffering from a plague.  Oedipus solves the riddle of the sphinx and claims the widowed Qn as his wife. (What starts life on 4 legs, then 2, and ends life on 3 legs?)  He and Qn Jocasta have 4 kids: Polyneices, Eteocles, Antigone, Ismene.  In order to lift the plague in Thebes, Oedipus seeks the killer of Laios, not knowing it is himself.  Tiresias ultimately breaks it to him that he is the killer of Laios. Distraught, he blinds himself; Jocasta kills herself.  Creon (Jocasta's brother), Eteocles, and Polyneices all want the throne of Thebes.  Oedipus is now in Colonus with Antigone and Ismene.  Oedipus had ruled that Eteocles and Polyneices should share the throne in two-year stints.  But when it is time for Polyneices to take over, Eteocles refuses to step down.  Polyneices is expelled from the city and goes to Oedipus for support, doesn't get it.  Oedipus is taken up alive by the gods.  Antigone and Ismene end up with Creon back in Thebes.  Polyneices returns to Thebes to take over the throne.  He and Eteocles kill each other.  Creon crowns himself.  He buries Eteocles as defender of the city, but leaves Polyneices, as an attacker of the city, unburied, which is against the religious law.

The play Antigone begins here.

Role of Chorus (skip it if it confuses you)     Background     Summary     Society's position     Voice & values of the citizens of Thebes (important since a new democracy)     Almost always sides with main character

Speaking in poetry (Antigone = royal family)     in prose (Creon = commoner)         Shakespeare does this too

Rule against non-burial.     Religious law as a product of its time period.     Here, civic law violates religious law (crux of Antigone's dilemma) Suicide as a noble exit when you know your time is up.

Antigone's family tree

    [see diagram]

King Laios + Queen Jocasta Creon + Eurydice

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Oedipus_______+ |

| |

Eteocles | Polyneices Haimon Antigone Ismene