Antigone Essays

Antigone Essays Antigone Essay Antigone Essay Essay Topic: Antigone Antigone BY bb0Y310 Antigone by Sophocles is an interesting play that I enjoyed reading. It was something different for me since I dont ever read plays. After reading the play I thought this story would fit under a feminist approach, until I fully began to understand and analyze each character of the play. In this paper I will discuss how the major events of Antigone can be analyzed through the psychological approach point of view. I as well read each critic about Antigone and found some similarity and dissimilarity opinions about the play. I will also discuss rather if I agree or not with the critics on Antigone. It is a great play that I am looking forward to analyzing. My favorite character in the play is Antigone. I know that she is a strong young girl who believes in what is right must be done, even if it means breaking the law and going against her uncle Creon. If it means risking her life to give her brother Polynices a proper burial she is willing to do it. Using the psychological approach I thought about what would influence Antigone to be so brave and risk her life. In the episodes the characters will talk with each other and the chorus, whilst the stasimon is the chorus chance to comment on the previous dialogue from the episode. The exodus is performed after the final stasimon and marks the end of the play. It is the opposite of the opening prologue as it reveals the outcome of the play. Antigone follows the conventional format of an Ancient Greek play precisely. I think that Antigone was set out in the conventional way because although Sophocles wished to be innovative if he had changed the structure of the play the audiences would not have understood what was happening. The Ancient Athenians had become accustomed to the general layout of a play and had not developed a mind for different dramatic structures which todays modern audiences possess. Conventions of Tragedy * The conventions of tragedy came mostly from a Greek critic and thinker called Aristotle. He created the manuscript The Poetics which discusses what should be included in a play in order for it to qualify as tragic. In an Ancient Greek play deaths and violence would occur off stage. Death in Ancient Greece was a very sensitive subject and Aristotle believed that death and violence would not bring any good emotions out of audience. Examples of this in the play are: Antigones, Haemons and Eurydices passing away. * Tiresias is another typical convention of tragedy which Sophocles includes. Tiresias is a blind prophet known in Ancient Greek as a Soothsayer. He has the ability to see events occurring in the feature and knows what the best course of action is. In Antigone he advises Creon what to do and warns him of the tragedy which is about to occur. The Soothsayer is important to the play as it shows the audience that some men have special powers, are wise and should be respected. When Creon disregards Tiresias and encounters trouble, Sophocles scares the audience and promotes respect for such elders. * Sophocles includes a death count at the end of his play. He does this to summarise the play and emphasize the loss of life encountered as a result of bad leadership. This caused the audience to ponder on issues that the play presented which was promoted by Aristotle. He believed that the audience should be emotionally involved with the play and he called this catharsis. He thought that if an audience was emotionally involved in a play with a great character it would benefit the audience. Antigone ends in an unsentimental way showing harsh disregard for Creons loss. Creon was warned several times what he should have done but did not listen. This unwillingness to change or listen was not promoted by the government or Aristotle. To be cruel to Creon the ending is very straight forward in detailing what will happen to him: he will just have to deal with his losses. This means that the audience do not sympathise, which was Aristotles goal * Aristotle believed that a great Tragedy should show the downfall of man. It was believed in Ancient Greece arrogant people would fail in life. This downfall as a result of arrogance was known as Hubris. Creon suffers from Hubris as he is unwilling to look at others perspectives or heed their advice. This complemented Aristotles ideology that events should progress from good to worse because of the bad choices made by characters. This is seen in Creon when at the beginning the good event is being crowned king, the bad event is the death of three people and his bad choice is ignoring other peoples advice. Chorus Sophocles plays were sometimes hard to comprehend. For this reason he uses the chorus to summarise complex pieces of plot. When Creon and Haemon are setting out their opinions on women their speeches are very long. The chorus then condense the main parts of the speech to an easily digestible chunk for the audience. Although the story is very compelling, an audience might have lost concentration in some parts. Therefore the chorus performances were more visually enticing to hold the audiences attention. For example in the stasimons the chorus do not simply restate the plot, they use visual words to stimulate the audiences mind into thinking about the play and its values: The chorus was seen as a secretive sect attached to a play: they were the wise elders who knew why characters were doing what they did. The chorus did not reveal their secrets often, so the audience was very attentive, trying to listen for a slip of valued words. One such occurrence is when Eurydices leaves to commit suicide. The chorus wonders aloud: What could it mean? The womans gone inside. The chorus knows why she has gone inside but they are prompting the audience to think about the significance of her action. Another interaction that the Chorus takes with characters is when they directly ask questions. For example the chorus asks Creon: Are you really planning to kill both of them? The chorus is doing two things here: questioning motives and attempting to clarify the ambiguity of the situation for the audience who cannot ask questions. The Chorus is wise as they have the ability to see both sides of an argument. In this way they act as ambassadors trying to be diplomatic in acknowledging the good points of each side. When Creon and Haemon are discussing the role of women (p 28 -31) the chorus pick out that Creon is very wise whilst they also acknowledge Haemons good thinking. The Chorus set a different tone and ambiance than the characters by providing a break from the action which occurs in the episodes, by performing choral stasimons. This break also allows Sophocles to vary his literary language. Whereas characters speak very literally and direct about issues, the chorus intergrate the gods, astrology and more out of the box ideas to issues. Therefore the audience not only receives a break from the action they are seeing but also from the one style of language used by the characters. Types of character used Antigone Antigone is like a modern day activist fighting the good cause. She knows that she is up against a great power but continues her crusade, much like a martyr, because she knows in her heart that she is right. An audience relating to Antigone on the stage through catharsis would find that Antigone is faced with internal conflict. This might have been what some men visiting the theatre were feeling too. However, some men who did not like women might have found that Antigone was enraging. Men might not have been aware that their women could cause so much havoc and as a result given them less freedom. Tiresias The Soothsayer adds to the progression of good fortune to misfortune in the story. In his quest to do right he aggravates Creon and is therefore pitied by the audience for trying to do what is best. Tiresias however is not weak and stands up for himself. The soothsayer is the underdog in the eyes of the audience but in himself knows what he is doing is correct. Under catharsis, audience members would have been encouraged to give wise words to people they know. The audience would be encouraged to help all people even when those people are causing havoc. Creon The lead protagonist who progresses the tragedy in Antigone as he shows his downfall is due to the bad decisions he makes. He represents the audience members who have made a few bad decisions which have been catastrophic. He also represents the people in an unfortunate situation; Creon does love his niece but cannot pardon her just because she is family. Audience members who have been in similar situations would be able to associate themselves with Creon and learn from his mistakes. Tension Dramatic tension is built in the conflict which occurs between characters. It is a gradual build up with characters first giving an introductory speech. One person then gives their main speech which builds tension for the opponent. The same occurs for the other person and by the end of that speech both characters are negatively charged. The characters then begin their conflict in the form of a stichomythic exchange. The tension comes to its apex when either the character is sent away or leaves at free will. This tension is then reduced by the pursuing choral odes which try to give a more balanced and calmer view of what has just been said. How to create a political drama? Two groups were formed to create a political drama. The stimulus for my groups drama was derived from local influences. As we live in the Middle East we decided that we would base our drama on a country which is very similar to Ancient Thebes: Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is ruled by a King, its women are oppressed and do not have the same rights as men and there is often scandal in the kingdom. Most of these scandals arise from conflict between men and women. The men try to keep the familys name clean and respected whilst the women are trying to get their rights. One of our main stimuli was the book Princess: A True Story of Life behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia by Jean P. Sasson. We decided that the play would be formed as similar to Antigone as possible. We tried to create a tragic play by having the main role an expatriate woman whose choice between saving her daughters life and doing nothing lands her in a lot of trouble. We attempted to make the play naturalistic to give the audience an accurate insight into the life of a woman in Saudi Arabia. We did this by studying Saudi culture in depth, especially how to pray, and by talking about what we thought life was like. This was aided by one member of our group who had actually lived in Saudi Arabia as an expatriate. We used theatrical devices such as chanting and masks to create our typical Saudi family. This was done to show that members of a Saudi family are meant to all be of the same mind frame. We then used erratic, inconsistent babble to show the real picture. This was done to emphasize that sometimes people cannot conform to the norms of society and believe in their own ideas. Our play was structured, like Antigone, mostly in chronological order with exceptions for referring to incidents which occurred in the past. The structure of our play was the only area where we deviated from the typical of Antigone. The structure was modernised to satisfy the modern audiences need for a bit more action. We showed violence on the stage as we felt that this would keep the audiences attention. Our work related to Antigone in that the central character was stuck between abiding by the rules of the land and doing what she knew as right. However, our play was not submerged in the political unlike Antigone. Our family were not in any way associated with a political ruling, but were only concerned about family reputation, a high importance to most families in the country. Therefore our character suffered mostly from personal conflict and not political conflict. Creating the play made me realise that Sophocles form and structure for Antigone was ingenious. He obviously thought out everything thoroughly and devoted a lot of his time perfecting his plays. Our play was good mostly because it dealed with a taboo subject which is rarely discussed in the area. I think, however, that if our play was on any other subject we would not have been able to retain the audiences attention. Antigone Essays Antigone Paper Antigone Paper In the tradition of all great Greek tragedies, Sophocles created a masterpiece when he wrote the play Antigone.The play contains a similar plot to a tragedy such as Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet because the play focuses on what lengths people go to when they cannot be with the ones they love.The play begins on a down note because the main character, Antigone, and her sister Ismene are the daughters of the exiled Oedipus whose luck was ill fated after he married his mother and killed his father. Antigone is upset because her brother Polyneices was killed and his body was left to rot.Her sister does not support Antigones decision to have a proper burial for their brother and she is afraid of what Creon, who is the ruler of Thebes, wrath will be.Antigone is in engaged to Haemon, the son of Creon.Antigone follows through with her plan to her brother and this angers Creon.Creon decision is to exile Antigone to a cave for life and spare Ismene.Haemon begs his father to spare Antigone but his pleading does not work and Haemon vows to never see his father again. Teiresias, the blind prophet, enters .He warns Creon that the gods side with Antigone.Creon accuses Teiresias of being corrupt, and Teiresisas responds that because of Creons mistakes, he will lose one child for the crimes of leaving Polyneices unburied and putting Antigone into the earth.All of Greece will despise him, and the sacrificial offerings of Thebes will not be accepted by the gods.The chorus asks Creon to take their advice and to bury Polyneices and save Antigone.Creon agrees to do this but before he can, a messenger tells Creon and his wife Eurydice that Haemon and Antigone have both taken their lives.Eurydice disappears and Creon goes to visit his sons body.Creon mourns because he realizes his actions have caused these events.Another messenger arrives to tell Creon that his wife has killed herself and with her last dying breath she h