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Sophocles - Antigona

Comment on trailer: I included the majority of the play. I stressed out the main events, like wars and the sacrifice of Antigone for her brother.

Task 2: Now I am going to describe the characters of the play:

Antigone: The play's tragic is heroine. In the first moments of the play, Antigone is opposed to her mean sister Ismene. Unlike her beautiful sister, Antigone is unhealthy, withdrawn, and is not obeying or sacrificing herself for anybody.But throughout the play, she is changing her whole personality.

Creon  -  Antigone's uncle. Creon is a wrinkled man suffering the roles of rule. A practical man, he firmly distances himself from the tragic aspirations of Oedipus and his line. He tells Antigone, his only interest is in political and social order. Creon is bound to ideas of good sense, simplicity, and the happiness of everyday life.

Ismene -  Blonde, beautiful, laughing, talkative Ismene is the good girl of the family. She is reasonable and understands her place and attempts to persuade Antigone from her act of rebellion. As in Sophocles' play, she is Antigone's foil. Ultimately she will grow and beg Antigone to allow her to join her in death. Antigone refuses, Ismene's conversion indicates how her resistance is meaningful

Haemon -  Antigone's young fiancé and son to Creon. Haemon appears twice in the play. In the first, he is rejected by Antigone; in the second, he begs his father for Antigone's life. Creon's refusal ruins his exalted view of his father. He too refuses the happiness that Creon offers him and follows Antigone to a tragic demise. .




Task 3.

The time period is crucial to understand the play. It is played in the 5th century BC. In that time, there were many wars and conflicts. Many of the writers in the 5th century wrote those play to show the social and political situations. Sophocles wrote this play to show Pericles, the ruler of Greece at that time, to be careful about the authoritarian ruling. He strengthens the possibility of a rule over, meaning that enemies can join and a switch of rulers can be possible. It is not that relevant today for us, but the play contains morality issues which can be found even in our times. In the play, Antigone breaks every rule and law and she doesn't care about the law. Today, we see people stealing from people without even showing any emotions or pity. Then there is the situation between men and women. Sophocles writes that men are more powerful as it was in that time, but Antigone refuses this rules and does what she wants, because she doesn't care about the laws. But at the end, she might have regretted as she died.



Task 4

A lot has happened so far in the play. The new King of Thebes, Creon, is a very cruel man who doesn't allow the burial of  his son who fought during a war against the Athene King, and both died. Creon lets them eat by dogs in a disgusting way. When Antigone heared about it, she wanted to change the king's mind, but she was considered as a citizen who is committing rebellion. That's why she and her sister are sent to a cave where they are supposed to die. Ismene, the sister of Antigone, is gone unpunished but not Antigone. Creon then receives a message from Gods, and they say that they are angry with him. Creon tries to make it all up, but when he wanted to free Antigone, she committed suicide and when he came back, her wife commited suicide as well.
What am I expecting? I hope than Creon will appreciate more the people who are close to him and that he will be punished or murdered.



Task 5

The major themes are family, naivity and vengeance.

Family: All of this play has to do with the family. Creon has a wife, who commits suicide, his son died in the war with the Athenian King and her daughter Antigone hang herself. The only one he has got left is Ismene, his other daughter, but she will maybe die as well, we will see. Creon has gone as a very cruel man and a mean father and husband. Sophocles wanted maybe to show how father were behaving during that time.

Naivety: Creon, the King, was very naive.He thought he is invincible and that everybody around him will obey and listen to him. But the exact opposite has happened. He has lost everyone he cared about because he didn't spend time with them, he didn't listen to their ideas and he even lets his own son eat by dogs rather that a proper funeral. Naivety is a very bad characteristic and King Creon knows maybe now that she should have behaved otherwise.

Vengeance: Vengeance is sweet. Many people even nowadays are using this phrase. The though of it is attractive of course. I mean if someone deceives you, you want to revenge yourself, this is perfectly normal. But the way of vengeance is important. In this case I mean Antigone. Even though she was not polite or respected the rules, she loved her brother and she didn't want him to be eaten by some dogs. She wanted to have proper funeral. When she heard about the fact that her own father refused, she planned a rebellion against him. Creon took her and closed her in a cave. She was sad of course that she didn't end what she started, but maybe through her death, she revenged herself, because Creon has lost his daughter. He didn't have to if he had listened to her.

Task 6: Sophocles, the author of Antigone, was born in 495 B.C. in Athens. He was the son of a wealthy merchant. He was very interested in all kinds of arts. He wrote more than 120 plays, which is very impressive. He was also a big supporter of theatre and music. He himself sang in a choir when he was sixteen. Of his 120 plays, two plays are considered to be the best. Those plays are Antigone and Oedipus the King. His motivation for writing Antigone was purely political and social. To demonstrate his thought, he created Antigone and King Creon. Those two characters are the most important ones. King Creon represented the political part of his thought. He created the King as cruel and fearful. During Sophocles‘time, there were many wars and lots of replacements of Kings. He showed in his play how the King took everything so seriously but without heart. Antigone on the other hand plays the social character. She is the one who wants to make a change. She wants a proper funeral for her lost brother and fights for it. Sophocles made this character to show people not to be afraid of saying and fighting for their beliefs. True, Antigone died later, but the morale is more important.

Task 7: Every drama has an antagonist and a protagonist. In this case, the Antagonist is King Creon who is playing the bad guy. The protagonist in Antigone who is a good person fighting for her wish to bury her brother.

The motivation for Creon is to to rule wisely. His philosophy was to be feared and to be evil and cruel so that everyone will respect him. He didn’t give certain people certain rights. For example, he was very cruel towards his family as well. He wanted his lost son to be eaten by dogs instead of burying him. He thought he would be invincible. But he forgot one thing and there he was weak: his family. Towards other people he was cruel, but towards his family as well but he didn’t see it. Later on, when he got the message that the Gods are angry with him, he was frightened himself and tried to make everything all right. But he was late. His daughter hang herself, and even when he came back home, his wife killed herself. He didn’t resist it very well. That is his morale; he wanted everything and came out with nothing.

The motivation for Antigone was just to bury his brother. She didn’t agree with her father, who wanted her brother to be eaten by dogs. She and her sister Ismene tried to bury their brother on their own, but a guard spotted them and took to the father. Antigone was sent to a cave. She was there for a long time, and she was thinking that she was not going out of there. Her motivation was lost; she didn’t achieve her goal so she hung herself.

Task 8: I chosed the critics of this page: http://vccslitonline.cc.va.us/antigone/criticism.htm

It has many critics towards this play, but I am going to choose those which I agree with. According to the criticisms, incest and hope are the biggest pieces which were controversial. In the article, the author writes that the incest is a very serious topic and strongly disagrees its appearing. The same goes with hope. Antigone talks to her sister Ismene to bury their brother. She gives her hope and she believes in it but loses her life later on. Every character has hope in this play, and no one can benefit from it, everyone loses.

Task 9: In general, I like the play. It was something new, but some parts of the play were strange. I liked the original theme and that is the courage of Antigone to go against her father. It must have been a tough time during the ancient times. From what I understood, there were wars and many conflicts. There were conflicts and wars between families and even cities. In my opinion, the king was too cruel and that is not the way a father should behave. Okay, to be invincible sound great, but at least he could have respected his family. Nevertheless the play was full of action and it wasn’t boring.

Now I am going to write the quotes I think are important:

1. Creon: “never at my hands will the traitor be worshipped above the patriot”.

Creon says this to her daughter Antigone, who is pleasing her father to consider the method of the burial of her lost brother. But then Creon says this quote, saying that her brother and his son will not be worshipped and deserves a mean death. He is considered as a traitor and no one is worshipped above the patriot. In this case the patriot is King Creon.

2. Haemon: “what a splendid King you'd make of a desert island, you and you alone”.

Haemon is now talking to his father Creon about marrying Antigone. Creon doesn’t agree and it becomes a discussion. Haemon is criticising his father’s ruling and said this quote. I was thinking and came to a conclusion. I think it means that Haemon was speaking for the whole population and expressed his opinion to the King. He said he would be a great king in a desert island, where nobody would live. Here Creon receives the first sign of his unsatisfactory ruling.

3. Creon: “i'm not about to prove myself a liar, not to my people, no, i'm going to kill her”.

Creon is now talking to his wife about the killing of Antigone. In this quote he says that he doesn’t want to look like a food infront of his people and that he would rather kill her to be satisfied and to have the people’s confidence.

4. Antigone: “I am agony”.

Those were Antigone’s last words before she hung herself. She was confused by her father’s words and instead of fighting for her survival, she rather hung herself and ended her life with the quote, meaning that she was evil and caused only problems.

5. Priest: “for mortal men there is no escape from the doom we must endure”.

This priest told Creon about the anger of the Gods towards him. He warned him and told him this quote. It means that even Creon will die eventually and that the more pain he causes, the more painful the escape (in this case death) will be very painful. Since then, Creon tried to make everything all right, but he was too late.

Task 10: The play Antigone and the novel Whale Rider are similar in the main character and hero being a girl who descends from the most important ancestor in the area. Like both Kings of those pieces deal with girls who fight for tradition. For example, Antigone wants to uphold traditions of proper burial rites and rituals to all Theban dead. Paikea Apirana wants to carry on such tribal traditions as using the fighting stick and recovering the whale tooth. They also are similar in having their main antagonist a close relative who should be an understanding follower, but instead is a hostile opponent. Antigone therefore comes into direct conflict with her father and future father-in-law, King Creon. Paikea Apirana struggles against her narrow-minded grandfather, Koro Apirana. And they're similar in the victory that their heroines achieve. But Antigone's victory is achieved at the cost of her life and of her future husband and mother-in-law. On the other hand, Paikea Apirana's life and victories aren't tragic.