Antigone: A summary of life
The Chorus introduces the players. Antigone is the girl who will rise up alone and die young. Haemon, Antigone's dashing fiance, chats with Ismene, her beautiful sister. Though one would have expected Haemon to go for Ismene, he inexplicably proposed to Antigone on the night of a ball. Creon is king of Thebes, bound to the duties of rule. Next to the sisters' sits the Nurse and Queen Eurydice. Eurydice will knit until the time comes for her to go to her room and die. Finally three Guards play cards, indifferent to the tragedy before them. The Chorus recounts the events leading to Antigone's tragedy. Oedipus, Antigone and Ismene's father, had two sons, Eteocles and Polynices. Upon Oedipus' death, it was agreed that each would take the throne from one year to the next. After the first year, however, Eteocles, the elder, refused to step down. Polynices and six foreign princes marched on Thebes. All were defeated. The brothers killed each other in a duel, making Creon king. Creon ordered Eteocles buried in honor and left Polynices to rot on the pain of death. It is dawn, and the house is still asleep. Antigone sneaks in and the Nurse appears and asks where she has been. Suddenly Ismene enters, also asking where An
The Nurse asks angrily if she went to meet someone-perhaps a lover. This insistence on her desire makes her monstrous. " Creon proceeds to systematically demystify Antigone's beloved brothers as brutish, traitorous gangsters, boys who brought their family grief, attempted to assassinate their father, and threatened the kingdom with ruin. She introduces an everyday, maternal element into the play that heightens the strangeness of the tragic world. Aware that Antigone has cast him as the villain of her play, Creon warns her against going to far. But as we will see, such human pleasures are not meant for her. The Nurse chastises them both for rising so early. Creon, on the other hand, devotes himself only to the order of the kingdom. Along with playing narrator, the Chorus also attempts to intercede throughout the play, whether on the behalf of the Theban people or the horrified spectators. Nurse - A traditional figure in Greek drama, the Nurse is an addition to the Antigone legend. It has nothing to do with melodrama. Tragedy is restful and flawless, free of melodramatic stock characters, dialogues, and plot complications. Antigone admits that she filched them from Ismene. The "falling action" after the death announcements would bring this purgation to its close. She asks if he could give someone a letter, offering him her ring.
Common topics in this essay:
Thebes Creon,
Strangely Chorus,
Creon Page,
Antigone Creon,
Ismene Antigone,
Chorus Antigone's,
Haemon Anouilh,
Aware Antigone,
Antigone Antigone,
Antigone Nurse,
antigone replies,
bury polynices,
creon king,
creon antigone,
antigone's act,
tells antigone,
creon replies,
insistence desire,
death creon,
antigone's death,
recounts events leading,
events leading antigone's,
death natural climax,
creon makes final,
makes final appeal,
|
Acceptance Essays
