Antigone

Antigone: SCENE 3

Questions:

1. IDENTIFY THE THEME OF THE BRIEF ODE TO LOVE.

Love often blinds people from reason and sound judgment, causing them to act contrary to their natural behavior. (love clouds reason)

2. WHAT IS THE LESSON FOR CREON IN THE ODE?

Anger has caused a rift between father and son, but accomplished nothing. Only love has conquered.

Summary: Characters- Haemon, Creon, Chorus, Choragus

Haemon (Creon’s son and Antigone’s fiancй) tries to reason with his father to reconsider the decision to kill Antigone. He advises that it is in his father’s best interest, but Creon accuses his son of siding with a woman. When Creon threatens to kill Antigone right in front of Haemon, his son angrily leaves, swearing to never return again. Without admitting that Haemon may be right, Creon tells the chorus that he will let Ismene live but still seal Antigone in a tomb, leaving her to die of starvation (rather than stoned to death by the city).

Vocabulary:

• Perverse: adj. willfully determined to go against what is expected or desired

• Diviners: those who predict the future

Significant Lines:

1. “If we must lose, let’s lose to a man, at least! Is a woman stronger than we?”

• CHARACTER (Creon): pride; sexism -Antigone has threatened his manhood

2. “But her death will cause another” (962)

• FORESHADOWING: foreshadows Haemon’s future suicide

3. “I will… lock her living in a vault of stone” (963)

• IRONY: Creon has decided to bury a person alive, but he has refused to bury a dead one.

4. “Whoever is chosen to govern should be obeyed- Must be obeyed, in all things, great and small, just and unjust!” (960)

• CHARACTER: