Antigone

1. Antigone (not anti-gone)

2. Antigone's name may have reminded the Greek audience of the word antignwmon (antignomon) or antignwnoj (antignonos), which means "of a different opinion."

3. Polynices (pol-uh-nahy-seez) = "much quarreling" • Ismene (is-mee-nee) = Possibly from Greek ισμη (isme) "knowledge"

4. ἈντιγόνηὦκοινὸναὐτάδελφονἸσμήνηςκάρα,ἆρ᾽οἶσθ᾽ὅτιΖεὺςτῶνἀπ᾽Οἰδίπουκακῶνὁποῖονοὐχὶνῷνἔτιζώσαιντελεῖ;οὐδὲνγὰροὔτ᾽ἀλγεινὸνοὔτ᾽ἄτηςἄτερ5οὔτ᾽αἰσχρὸνοὔτ᾽ἄτιμόνἐσθ᾽, ὁποῖονοὐτῶνσῶντεκἀμῶνοὐκὄπωπ᾽ἐγὼκακῶν.καὶνῦντίτοῦτ᾽αὖφασιπανδήμῳπόλεικήρυγμαθεῖναιτὸνστρατηγὸνἀρτίως;ἔχειςτικεἰσήκουσας; ἤσελανθάνει10πρὸςτοὺςφίλουςστείχοντατῶνἐχθρῶνκακά;

5. The Very Brief Story of Antigone • After Oedipus was disgraced and revealed as unclean, his sons Polynices and Eteocles fought for control of the kingdom. After being thrown out of Thebes by his brother Eteocles, Polynices went to Argos and raised an army to attack Thebes. The attack failed, and Eteocles and Polynices fought a single combat for the kingdom, and killed each other. • Having succeeded to the kingdom of Thebes, Creon cast out the Argive dead unburied, issued a proclamation that none should bury them, and set watchmen to make sure that no one would disturb the rotting corpses. • But Antigone, one of the daughters of Oedipus, stole the body of Polynices, and secretly buried it, and having been detected by Creon himself, she was interred alive in the grave. • [Apollodorus says nothing of the romance between Haemon and Antigone; in fact, he says that Haemon was killed earlier when he unsuccessfully tried to answer the riddle of the Sphinx. Sophocles may have invented the romance to make Antigone’s and Creon’s tragedy more moving.]

8. Conflict is the heart of Antigone, which is so structured that each protagonist can act only by attacking and destroying the central values of the other.

9. The play offers conflicting definitions of the basic terms of the human condition: • friend and enemy • citizen and ruler • father and son • male and female • justice and injustice • reverence and irreverence • purity and pollution • honor and dishonor • and even (in the Ode on Man) conflicting judgments of what is anthrôpos, a human being • powerful or helpless • wonderful or terrible (both of these are meanings of the same word, deinon).

10. Prologue • Contest: Antigone vs. Creon Moral vs. Civic Law • Before dawn of the day after the repulse of the Argive army from the assault on Thebes • Argive (Polynieces) • Thebes (Eteocles)

11. Prologue • Hamartia • Antigone’s stubborn loyalty • her tragic error; causes her downfall. • Friend and Enemy • Antigone: “And now you can prove what you are: A true sister, or a traitor to your family.” • Male and Female • Ismene: “We are only women.”

12. Hamartia • * Antigone’s stubborn loyalty • * her tragic error; causes her downfall. • Friend and Enemy • * Antigone: “And now you can prove what you are: A true sister, or a traitor to your family.” • Male and Female • * Ismene: “We are only women.”

13. ParodosWhen the Chorus performed the parados they would "parade" in, singing and dancing with much fanfare. • Dawn • Describes the battle of the day before • Choral songs are in poetic language and sometimes sound obscure • Metaphor • “Polyneices their commander. . . He the wild eagle screaming insults above our land. . . .” • Personification • “The famished spears came onward in the night”

14. Parados and Dramatic Irony • The parados in Antigone is a joyful celebration of victory. • “With hearts dancing, we’ll take leave on war.” • Ironic: the audience has just watched the prologue, in which Antigone declares her intentions to defy the state. • “But I will bury him; and if I must die, I say that this crime is holy.” • Thebes has just defeated an external enemy, but Creon will be challenged almost immediately by an enemy from within.

15. Parados • Justice and Injustice • For God hates utterly the bray of bragging tongues; And when he beheld their [Argive soldiers] smiling, Their swagger of golden helms, The frown of his thunder blasted Their first man from our walls.

16. Scene 1- First Episode • Morning • Creon in his first appearance in the play delivers a long speech outlining the philosophy that guides his actions and his edict

17. Scene 1 – Creon’s speech • Dominated by words such as “principle,” “law,” “policy,” and “decree” • Shows how Creon fixates on government and law as the supreme authority. • Friend and Enemy • You’re either with me or against me • “I would never have any dealings with an enemy of the people.” • Pompous, self-important language • Extended sea-faring metaphor • Ship of State, recent storms, safely to harbor, wrecking our ship

18. Scene 1 • Chorus supports Creon • “If that is your will, Creon son of Menoikeus, You have the right to enforce it: we are yours.” • Sentry • Comical character

19. Scene 1 - Creon • Obsessed with money/bribes • “Yet money talks, and the wisest have sometimes been known to count a few coins too many.” • “Money! There’s nothing in the world so demoralizing as money, down go your cities, homes gone, men gone, honest hearts corrupted, crookedness of all kinds, and all for money! • “The dearest profit is sometimes all too dear.”

20. Ode 1 • Hymn on the greatness of man, who, because of his intellect, masters the sea in ships, the earth in farms, animals in hunting • Man has fashioned language, laws and shelter from the elements • Man is great when he "weaves in the laws of the land, and the justice of the gods," but he who "weds himself to inhumanity" will never have the support of the city

21. Ode to Man • The Chorus ends the "Ode to Man" by praising the laws of the city. • “When the laws are kept, how proudly his city stands.” • They disdain anybody who would want to bring anarchy back to Thebes. • “Never may the anarchic man find rest at my hearth.” • But wait, what’s this? (Hint: the answer is irony) • Immediately after the Chorus gets done railing against anarchists at the end of the ode, who should show up in chains? Antigone the anarchist! • It's almost as if she's the god's answer to the great hubris shown in the Chorus' song.

22. Scene 2 • Early afternoon • Face-to-face confrontation of Antigone and Creon • Antigone insists that she was aware of the law, but placed the law of the gods above the law of "a mere mortal" which cannot "override the gods;” she says that she is not concerned about "some man's wounded pride," and accuses Creon of being a fool

23. Scene 2 • Male and female • Creon: “Who is the man here, she or I, if this crime goes unpunished?” • Creon: “There are places enough for him to push his plow, I want no wicked women for my sons!” • Creon: “For they are but women, and even brave men run when they see Death coming.” • Enemy and Friend • Creon: An enemy is an enemy, even dead.”

24. After the confrontation between Creon and Antigone, the Chorus sings of the misfortune that has come to Antigone and Ismene, who have been condemned to death. Ode 2

25. Ode 2 • Main points: • Ruin decreed by the gods passes from one generation to the next • No one can stand against the power of Zeus • We may dream, but finally our fate is in the hands of the gods

26. Scene 3 – Third Episode • Haemon and Creon argue; the dispute is set in terms of: • age vs youth • Creon's defiance vs public opinion • woman vs man • father vs justice • state vs gods

27. Scene 3 - Creon’s Speech • Creon launches into a long speech on good children, a warning against women, and his ideas of law and order • The tone is arrogant • The fight is personal

28. Scene 3 – Creon’s Speech • Father and Son • “That is the way to behave: subordinate everything else, my son, to your father’s will.” • Friend and Enemy, Father and Son • “Sons. . . Each one hating his father’s enemies, honoring his father’s friends.” • Justice and Injustice • “Whoever is chosen to govern should be obeyed-must be obeyed, in all things great and small, just and unjust.” • Male and Female • “And no woman shall seduce us. If we must lose, let’s lose to a man, at least! Is a woman stronger than we?

29. Scene 3 – Haimon’s Speech • Haemon responds that it's not up to him to contradict his father, but he has heard the public opinion that Antigone's action was right; Haemon uses the ship of state metaphor • Concession • “You must believe me: nothing is closer to me than your happiness. What could be closer? Must not any son value his father’s fortune as his father does his?”

30. Scene 3 – Haimon’s Speech • Haimon begs Creon to be flexible • “It is not reason never to yield to reason!” • This is similar to Creon’s earlier description of Antigone: “She has much to learn. The inflexible heart breaks first, the toughest iron cracks first. . . .”

31. Scene 3 • Choragos tries to be the voice of reason • “You will do well to listen to him, King.” • Creon’s Hubris: • “You consider it right for a man of my years and experience to go to school to a boy?” • Male and Female • “This boy, it seems, has sold out to a woman.” • “Fool, adolescent fool! Taken in by a woman!” • “You girlstruck fool!” • Reverence and Irreverence • Haimon to Creon: “You have no right to trample on God’s right.”

32. Scene 3 • Haemon says Antigone's death will bring another. • Creon’s paranoia leads him to see this as a threat • “Have you lost your senses? Is this an open threat?” • Creon says that he will wall up Antigone with short rations to protect the city from blame for her death • Shows that Creon fears he might be wrong • Irony: he refuses to bury the dead and then insists on burying the living

33. Since choral odes generally comment upon the action of the previous episode, what connection do you think this ode has with the preceding scene Ode 3 Ode to the power of Love / Aphrodite, the all powerful “Pleasure to her alone who mocks us, merciless Aphrodite.”

34. Scene 4 • Chorus is very complimentary towards Antigone • Antigone compares her sorrow to that of Niobe • Invokes the family curse • “Their crime infection of all our family!” • Enter Creon who is impatient to have Antigone gone • “And if she lives or dies, that’s her affair, not ours: our hands are clean.” • Antigone makes a long speech about meeting her parents in the grave, her marriage bed being a grave, and blaming it all on Creon and the Chorus • “But if the guilt lies upon Creon who judged me, then, I pray, may his punishment equal my own.”

35. Niobe • Married Amphion, an early ruler of Thebes. • She boasted that she had borne many beautiful children, but that Leto, mother of Apollo and Artemis, had borne only two. • For this hubristic comment, Apollo and Artemis killed all her children, while Niobe was turned to stone.

36. Ode 4 • Chorus tells the stories of Danae, Lycurgus and Cleopatra, all of whom were walled up alive in a tomb • We’ll remember you • Connects Antigone with others who were unjustly accused • These same old men who were previously celebrating man's mastery over nature are becoming humbled in the face of the gods

37. Scene 5 • Teiresias the prophet/seer • tells of the bad omens he’s noticed and urges Creon to relent regarding Antigone • blind, but can “see” better than any around him • receives visions of the future • Gifted in the magic art of augury • telling the future from the behavior of birds • Think about how difficult it would be to know the future (in this case, usually tragic) or those around you. • Imagine the frustration of having those you try to warn not believe the information you tell them.

38. Scene 5 • Bird imagery/irony • “Polyneices . . . The wild eagle screaming insults above our land” (Parodos). • “Our hearths and altars are stained with the corruption of dogs and carrion birds that glut themselves on the corpse of Oedipus’ son [Polyneices]” (Scene 5 • Arguing with Tiresias, Creon openly defies Zeus • “No Teiresias: if your birds - if the great eagles of God himself shall carry him. . .to heaven, I would not yield.” • Paranoia • “Get rich otherwise than by my consent to bury him. Teiresias, it is a sorry thing when a wise man sells his wisdom, lets out his words for hire!” • At this point, Creon has accused Antigone, Ismene, the Sentry, Haemon and Teiresias of being bribed to undermine him. From: To:

39. Chorus: Paean • Chorus calls on Dionysus/Bacchus to come to Thebes and bring the dance

40. THEME Fate raises up, and Fate casts down the happy and unhappy alike: no man can foretell his Fate

41. Exodos • MESSENGER’S SPEECH • delivers the bad news - and there’s a lot of it! • informs Creon of Eurydice's suicide and her dying curse on Creon • Creon, "I don't even exist - I'm no one. Nothing." • LAMENTATION: Creon mourns the loss of his son and wife • RECOGNITION:“I alone am guilty.” • CELEBRATION OF THE GODS: “There is no happiness where there is no wisdom; no wisdom but in submission to the gods.”

42. “Ode to Man” Revisited • Creon represents the state or man-made civilization. • Antigone represents the primal will of the gods: Nature • Nature is offended by Creon and in support of Antigone • storm outside of Thebes • auguries of Teiresias • When all of Creon's family members kill themselves by the end of the play, it's as if nature itself is taking payment for his sacrilege. • In a way, all of man's accomplishments could be seen as being just as terrible as they are wonderful.

43. Power of Words • Written in 1942, during the Nazi occupation of France, Jean Anouilh's translation of the Greek tragedy Antigone revolves around the conflict between the idealist Antigone and her rigid uncle, Creon, over the proper burial of Antigone's brother, Polynices. Anouilh, in his translation, related that struggle to that of the French resistance against the Vichy government during the Nazi occupation. The play was an instant success in its first staging and cemented Anouilh's reputation as a playwright.