Antigone: Introduction
- Created by: Bormerod
- Created on: 29-02-16 19:36
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- Political context
- Antigone: Introduction
- Creon's speech = an example of the ideal loyalties of a citizen & a lesson in patriotism
- Creon
- Practical man
- Power poses dilemma
- desire to rule fairly but firmly
- desire to restore & maintain order in a chaotic situation
- frustrated bbby a determined, fanatical, apparently irrational resistance
- Finds it unthinkable that the gods would demand the burial of a traitor
- Last to recognise the strength of those social & religious imperitives that Antigone obeys
- Displays all the characteristics of the tryrant
- A dispotic ruler who siezes power & retains it by intimidation and force
- Chorus
- Only express sypmathy for Antigone as she is led off to her death
- Only criticise Creon when they hear from Tiresias
- Even though Creon's actin is clearly a violation of divine law
- Interests of the city are paramount
- makes sense, few Greeks would question loyalty to the state during crisis
- Natural sympathy with Antigone is very modern
- Antigone
- Feels she owes a duty to Polynices & their family relationship
- Sacrifices her life to perform a symbolic burial for Polynices
- From first to last, her religious devotion & duty are to the divine powers of the world below (Hades)
- Makes 3 appearances
- prologue: plan her action
- Confrontation: defend her plan to Creon
- Death: under guard, on her way to the prison that will be her tomb
- hung herself in a sort of existential despair
- Why didn't the Gods save her? - her actions were good
- motives too narrow?
- Indifference to the city & its rights
- The play is a collision between the two highest moral powers
- Hades
- Has a fearful respect
- Is a divine power, a dreadful prescence
- Highlights the problems of the city state
- Modern adaptations are very political
- Antigone: Introduction
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