Antigone Study Guide PDF

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Antigone Study Guide Character Summaries Antigone: ● Daughter of Oedipus and sister to Ismene, Polyneices, and Eteocles. Goes against Creon’s orders and buries Polyneices and faces punishment. Ends up committing suicide. Ismene: ● Sister of Antigone, Polyneices and Eteocles. Chooses not to help Antigone bury the body of Polyneices. Later shows her loyalty to Antigone when Antigone receives her punishment. Creon: ● Newly appointed King of Thebes, married to Eurydice, and father of Haemon. Doesn’t allow the Thebans to bury Polynices because of Polyneices’ supposed motive of taking over the town and becoming a forceful king. Punishes Antigone for going against his orders but becomes persuaded to free her immediately after she committed suicide. Polyneices: ● Brother of Antigone, Ismene, and Eteocles. Dies in battle with his brother. Not given honor in death because Creon said not to bury him as a result of his treasonous acts. Eteocles: ● Brother of Antigone, Ismene and Polyneices. Dies in battle with brother. Given an honorable burial by Creon. Guard: ● Tells Creon that someone had taken and buried the body of Polyneices. Was told by Creon that if he didn’t find out who did it he would face a terrible punishment. Teiresias: ● Prophet in Thebes. Tells Creon that he must listen to him but Creon is stubborn. After being persuaded by the Chorus, he listens to Teiresias. Chorus:

● A group of Theban elders who act in both an active and passive manner. Although they are often silenced by Creon, they are able to limit his absolute power. Haemon: ● Son of Creon and Eurydice and fiancé of Antigone. Kills himself once finding out that Antigone has killed herself. Eurydice ● Wife of Creon and mother of Haemon. Kills herself after finding out that Antigone and Haemon are dead.

Plot Summary: The story begins with Antigone and Ismene standing before the royal palace in Thebes. The two sisters discovered the deaths of their brothers –Polyneices and Eteocles. The brothers died while fighting against the Argives. Due to Creon’s – Antigone’s uncle and newly appointed Theban King– decision, Eteocles will receive a proper burial for his honorable fighting but Polyneices will not. Creon has created a rule that Polyneices shall remain unburied as a result of his traitorous actions on Thebes. Antigone decides that she must bury her brother and go against Creon’s wish. She asks Ismene to help her but Ismene refuses, not wanting to disobey Creon. After trying to persuade Ismene for help, Antigone goes to fulfill the deed. Creon gathers all of the Thebans to tell them of the new rule of leaving Polyneices unburied. While addressing the people, the guard alerts Creon that the body of Polyneices has been taken and buried by an unknown figure. The guard is sent out to discover who has committed this crime. Shortly after, they discover that Antigone is the one who buried her brother and Creon throws her into jail. Following this punishment, Creon is approached by Teiresias and informed that he should let Antigone free. Creon doesn’t want to listen to the prophet but the Chorus and Haemon all work on convincing him. As this interaction takes place, Antigone takes her own life in the jail cell so that she can be with her brother in the afterlife. Haemon discovers his bride hanging from a noose in her cell and becomes overcome with grief and anger towards his father. He tries to kill Creon, however, Haemon misses with his sword and ends up committing suicide as well by laying on his sword. This news is delivered to the Chorus through the Messenger right before Eurydice– Haemon’s mother– enters and learns of the heartbreaking news. The Chorus addresses Creon telling him that he ultimately decided to do the correct thing too late. While carrying the body of Haemon, the Messenger delivers more sad news: Eurydice has killed herself. Similar to Haemon, Eurydice became overcome with sadness and anger at

Creon over the deaths over her son and future daughter-in-law. Creon is left with the ultimate sense of depression and asks for death to take him soon. However, the Chorus reminds him that he can’t escape his fate and that praying won’t do anything– the only thing left to do is suffer.

Themes: ● Loyalty and family vs. state: Antigone remains loyal to her brother Polyneices and the gods’ laws of burial regardless of the consequences this will have according to state law ● Power and gender roles: Creon’s thirst for power and control leads him to become enraged by Antigone’s violation of his law → the fact that she is a woman further undermines his authority ● Morality and justice: does Polyneices’ actions against the state justify his lack of burial? ● Glory and personal motives: does Antigone’s act of rebellion come from her desire to give her brother a just burial out of love for him or from a thirst for glory obtained through an honorable death? ● Madness and gender: women who rebel are seen as insane ● Dehumanization: Creon says that Antigone can easily be replaced by another wife for Haemon ● Hubris: Creon’s selfish concerns for power lead to the tragic death of all of his loved ones and his punishment of a miserable life ● Wisdom: wisdom doesn’t necessarily come from old men, but from those who learn to see the world from multiple perspectives ● Justice: does Creon’s decision to treat all “criminals” the same way regardless of circumstances create justice? Yet this contradicts the way that he treats Polyneices and Eteocles differently ● Death: death is represented almost as a positive recompense or end to one’s suffering, whereas living is the true form of torture that Creon must go through; death is also the ultimate expression of power

Analysis, important terms, and questions to think about: ● Creon speaks for the state, rather than the family unit ● Stichomythia - short exchanges between two characters → pg. 37 exchange between Antigone and Creon seen as trial for her decision to follow natural law ● Irony created when Creon rejects natural law of old justice system but enforced old system of governance with his divine right to rule rather than having a democartic system ● The play is more about a woman transgressing power → there would not have necessarily been the same outcome if Antigone had been a man

● Antigone could be portrayed as an iliadic hero in the civic world gaining glory through death for a moral cause she is passionate about → she is a civic portrayal of Achilleus ● Antigone’s morals of equality and justice make it easier for the modern reader to empathize with her, although this was likely not the case when Sophocles first wrote this ● Polyneices was already punished through death → did he deserve the lack of a burial? ● Creon focused on power, not justice → didn’t want a woman to be more powerful than him ● Antigone doesn’t want Ismen to die as well because ○ Doesn’t want Ismene to share in her glory for refraining to participate in the act ○ Or: Wants to protect Ismene by breaking ties ● Antigone transferred family ties by recreating ties with Polyneices and thus breaking ties with Ismene and the rest of her family ● Parallel created between Eteocles and Ismene (focused on state) and Polyneices and Antigone (focused on family and disrupting rules of power) ● Is Antigone self-victimizing herself to get more honor through death ● Antigone’s suicide could be an expression of her control over her life → seizing her destiny and preventing Creon from determining when she will die ● Haemon could not kill power (Creon), so killed himself to detach himself from the control of Creon ● Creon is totalitarian to the point that the chorus is influenced by him or can’t speak ● Creon plays god, believes that he can dictate justice ● Chorus calls Antigone ōmos - savage because of her taboo crime that breaks gender roles ○ However, t could be argued that in lamenting and burying her brother, she is submitting to her feminine gender roles ● Ismene = leaning towards ● Antigone = won’t give birth ● Eurydice = wide justice ● Haemon = blood ● Antigone positions herself above human customs and above mortality ● If women are outside the oikos (home) and interfering with the polis (society), then something is inherently wrong with the polis ○ Antigone’s actions reveal Creon’s failure to rule ● Sophocles shows us someone combining dichotomies of the feminine and masculine → represent complexity of humanity ● Tireisias can’t physically see, but he “sees” what Creon is doing wrong, while Creon appears to have sight but is blind in the face of his injustice...