Antigone LRJ

Jake Wythers
Ms. Peifer
10 IB Hour Five
11/26/2008

Antigone LRJ 2

1. "But his body must lie in the fields, a sweet treasure for the carrion birds to find as they search for food" (Sophocles 816) I think this is the most important image in the entire play. This is Antigone imagining the body of her beloved brother Polyneices, left out like meat scraps for the vultures to scrounge. The reason this image is so important is because it is what carries Antigone through the whole play and all her hardships. The image of her brother rotting away un buried was powerful enough to inspire Antigone to defy her uncle King Creon and risk death by stoning.

2. King Creon's fatal flaw is obviously his stubbornness. This is what kept him from seeing the truth, and this is what brought his whole family crashing down around his ears, left alone in his world. "No doubt. Speak; Whatever you say, you will not change my will" (837) Creon says this to the prophet Teiresias because he is too stubborn to view his predictions, because they aren't what Creon wants to hear.

3.King Creon goes through anagnorisis in the story when he realizes that everything has actually been his fault. "Whatever my hands have touched has come to nothing. Fate has brought all my pride to a thought of dust." (842) Here he sees that all his family has killed themselves and he is left with nothing, all thanks to his pride and stubbornness.

4. This is also the plays moment of peripeteia. As in al the greatest Greek tragedies, it occurs at the same time as anagnorisis. Creon's fortune is reversed when he sees that everyone around him that he cared for is gone, and it was all his fault.

5. When I read the story, I understood the catharsis at this moment in the play as well. When Creon turned from the tyrant to the foolish old man with no family, it is much easier to feel pity for him. "I alone am guilty."(841) This is the exact point when i felt catharsis, because I saw that Creon had realized his mistake.

6. There are two vastly different characterizations of women in this story. On one hand you have the strong willed, defiant Antigone, who goes against her uncle's wishes and the law to do what she knows is right. "Creon is not strong enough to stand in my way." (816) This shows that there must have been women that the ancient Greeks admired for their strength of character. On the other hand, Antigone's sister Ismene is a much more meek, unsure of herself, and unwilling to act on her beliefs. "I do them no dishonour; but to defy the State,-I have no strength for that." This summarizes Ismene's character in the play as a woman who is in a much more subservient role.


Works Cited
Sophocles. "Antigone." Literature Timeless Voices, Timeless Themes: World Literature. Trans. Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall 2001. 814-826.
Sophocles. "Antigone." The Internet Classics Archive. Trans. R.C. Jebb. 04October 2000. Classics.mit.edu. 24 November 2008 .