Antigone

Front 1

Antigone

Back 1

he play's tragic heroine. In the first moments of the play, Antigone is opposed to her radiant sister Ismene. Unlike her beautiful and docile sister, Antigone is scrawny, sallow, withdrawn, and recalcitrant brat.

Front 2

Creon

Back 2

Antigone's uncle. Creon is powerfully built, but a weary and wrinkled man suffering the burdens of rule. A practical man, he firmly distances himself from the tragic aspirations of Oedipus and his line. As he tells Antigone, his only interest is in political and social order. Creon is bound to ideas of good sense, simplicity, and the banal happiness of everyday life.

Front 3

Ismene

Back 3

londe, full-figured, and radiantly beautiful, the laughing, talkative Ismene is the good girl of the family. She is reasonable and understands her place, bowing to Creon's edict and attempting to dissuade Antigone from her act of rebellion. As in Sophocles' play, she is Antigone's foil. Ultimately she will recant and beg Antigone to allow her to join her in death. Though Antigone refuses, Ismene's conversion indicates how her resistance is contagious.

Front 4

Haemon

Back 4

Antigone's young fiancé and son to Creon. Haemon appears twice in the play. In the first, he is rejected by Antigone; in the second, he begs his father for Antigone's life. Creon's refusal ruins his exalted view of his father. He too refuses the happiness that Creon offers him and follows Antigone to a tragic demise.

Front 5

Nurse

Back 5

A traditional figure in Greek drama, the Nurse is an addition to the Antigone legend. She introduces an everyday, maternal element into the play that heightens the strangeness of the tragic world. Fussy, affectionate, and reassuring, she suffers no drama or tragedy but exists in the day-to-day tasks of caring for the two sisters. Her comforting presence returns Antigone to her girlhood. In her arms, Antigone superstitiously invests the Nurse with the power to ward off evil and keep her safe.

Front 6

Jonas

Back 6

he three Guardsmen are interpolations into the Antigone legend, doubles for the rank-and-file fascist collaborators or collabos of Anouilh's day. The card-playing trio, made all the more mindless and indistinguishable in being grouped in three, emerges from a long stage tradition of the dull-witted police officer. They are eternally indifferent, innocent, and ready to serve..

Front 7

Second guard

Back 7

argely indistinguishable from his cohorts, the Second Guard jeeringly compares Antigone to an exhibitionist upon her arrest.

Front 8

Third guard

Back 8

The last of the indifferent Guardsmen, he is also largely indistinguishable from his cohorts.

Front 9

Messanger

Back 9

Another typical figure of Greek drama who also appears in Sophocles' Antigone, the Messenger is a pale and solitary boy who bears the news of death. In the prologue, he casts a menacing shadow: as the Chorus notes, he remains apart from the others in his premonition of Haemon's death.

Front 10

Page

Back 10

Creon's attendant. The Page is a figure of young innocence. He sees all, understands nothing, and is no help to anyone but one day may become either a Creon or an Antigone in his own right.

Front 11

Chorus

Back 11

Anouilh reduces the Chorus, who appears as narrator and commentator. The Chorus frames the play with a prologue and epilogue, introducing the action and characters under the sign of fatality. In presenting the tragedy, the Chorus instructs the audience on proper spectatorship, reappearing at the tragedy's pivotal moments to comment on the action or the nature of tragedy itself. 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.

Front 12

Eurydice

Back 12

Creon's kind, knitting wife whose only function, as the Chorus declares, is to knit in her room until it is her time to die. Her suicide is Creon's last punishment, leaving him entirely alone.

Front 13

"I didn't say yes. I can say no to anything I say vile, and I don't have to count the cost. But because you said yes, all that you can do, for all your crown and your trappings, and your guards—all that your can do is to have me killed."

Back 13

The political heroism in Antigone's resistance is her refusal of state power. Antigone says no to all she finds vile, and in this sense she is more powerful than the ruler beholden to his throne. Despite all his trappings of power, Creon finds himself helpless, unable to act on his own.

Front 14

"My nails are broken, my fingers are bleeding, my arms are covered with the welts left by the paws of your guards—but I am a queen!"

Back 14

Antigone--makes this delirious proclamation upon reading Creon's weakness. In contrast to conventional readings of the Antigone legend, Anouilh's Antigone does not defend her act of rebellion in the name of filial, religious, or even moral integrity. This insistence becomes especially clear in the course of her confrontation with Creon. In asking why and in whose name Antigone has rebelled, Creon will progressively strip Antigone's act of its external motivations. Antigone will have no "just cause," no human reason for bringing herself to the point of death: her act is senseless and gratuitous.

Front 15

"if Haemon reaches the point where he stops growing pale with fear when I grow pale, stops thinking that I must have been killed in an accident when I am five minutes late, stops feeling that he is alone on earth when I laugh and he doesn't know why—if he too has to learn to say yes to everything—why, no, then, no! I do not love Haemon!"

Back 15

Antigone recants her love for Haemon toward the end of her confrontation with Creon. Creon has unmasked her brothers as treacherous gangsters, making her act and death march entirely gratuitous. Its political, moral, filial, and religious motivations appear entirely external. Thus Creon offers the dazed Antigone the promise of human happiness.

Front 16

"As for those three red-faced card players—they are the guards. One smells of garlic, another of beer; but they're not a bad lot. They have wives they are afraid of, kids who are afraid of them; they're bothered by the little day-to- day worries that beset us all. At the same time—they are policemen: eternally innocent, no matter what crimes are committed; eternally indifferent, for nothing that happens can matter to them. They are quite prepared to arrest anybody at all, including Creon himself, should the order be given by a new leader."

Back 16

he Chorus directly addresses the audience and appears self- conscious with regards to the spectacle: we are here tonight to take part in the story of Antigone

Front 17

"Every kind of stillness. The hush when the executioner's ax goes up at the end of the last act. The unbreathable silence when, at the beginning of the play, the two lovers, their hearts bared, their bodies naked, stand for the first time face to face in the darkened room, afraid to stir. The silence inside you when the roaring crowd acclaims the winner—so that you think of a film without a sound track, mouths agape and no sound coming out of them, a clamor that is not more than picture; and you, the victor, already vanquished, alone in the desert of your silence. That is tragedy."

Back 17

Stillness appears as a key metaphor in the Chorus's comments on the nature of tragedy. First the Chorus evokes this stillness in its theatrical mode. This stillness is equated with the spring-like tension and sense of suspense in tragedy that it evokes earlier. Tragedy's stillness appears in the moment before the execution, the moment at the beginning of a play before the consummation of a love affair.

Front 18

Thebes

Back 18

hief city of ancient Boeotia, in eastern central Greece. Here, the location of the tragedy.

Front 19

Zeus

Back 19

the chief deity of Greek mythology, son of Chronus and Rhea and husband of Hera.

Front 20

Argos

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ancient city-state in the northeast Peloponnesus from the seventh century B.C. until the rise of Sparta. Here, used to represent the forces led by Polynices to take back Thebes.

Front 21

What law does Antigone follow?

Back 21

The god's law, believes it is above man's

Front 22

"I will suffer nothing as great as death without glory."

Back 22

Antigone

Front 23

What analogies are found throughout the play?

Back 23

Nautical

Front 24

"Never at my hands will the traitor be honored above the patriot"

Back 24

Creon

Front 25

"see that you never side with those who break my orders."

Back 25

Gets the elderly leader to side with him, gaining support because he suspects he will find opposition

Front 26

"These are the instigators, I'm convinced- they've perverted my own guard, bribed them to do their work. Money! nothing worse in our lives, so current, rampant, so corrupting. Money--you demolish cities."

Back 26

Creon says when he finds out Antigone burried Eteocles he blames the guards

Front 27

"I am not the man, not now: she is the man if this victory goes to her and she goes free."

Back 27

Creon says if he lets Antigone get away with it he loses his manhood, women haters..

Front 28

Huberis

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pride that leads to downfall, clouds judgment

Front 29

"give me glory! what greater glory could I win than to give my own brother decent burial? These citizens here would all agree"

Back 29

Antigone tells creon everyone agrees with her but is afraid of him

Front 30

How does Creon want to kill Antigone?

Back 30

He wants to hill her in front of Haemon, but burries her in a cave alive

burry the living, wont bury the dead

Front 31

"take these things to heart, my son, I warn you. All men make mistakes, it is only hman. But once the wrong is done, a man can turn his back on folly, misfortune too, if he tries to make amends hoever low he's fallen and stops his bullnecked ways. Stubbornness brands you for stupidity, PRIDE is a crime."

Back 31

Tiresias tells Creon, because he didnt bury Polynices the god's are man and will punish him by killing his son

Front 32

"The mighty words of the proud are paid in full with mighty blows of fate, and at long last those blows teach us wisdom."

Back 32

the chorus sings at the end, lessons: follow laws of gods, dont be so proud (huberus)

Front 33

How has Creon changed in the end?

Back 33

He realized his mistakes but it is too late. He lost 2 nephews, Antigone, a wife and 2 sons