Antigone versus Creon
The Debate
Directions: The external conflict between Antigone and Creon dramatically manifests
itself in episode 2 where it is evidence that the conflict arises not only from the nature of
the immediate situation (the burial of Polynieces in defiance of Creon’s edict) but from
the strength of will of each character and their defiance of traditional Greek gender roles.
In the statements below, Antigone confronts Creon with accusations about how he has
handled this situation and statements of her own intent. Creon questions Antigone’s
motives. In your own words, write each character’s rebuttal to the other.
Antigone
1. “I never thought your moral edicts had
such force they nullified the laws of
heaven…”
Creon
2. “..if this hurries me to death before my
time, why, such a death is gain.”
3. “If you judge me fool, perhaps it is
because a fool is judge.”
4. “Where could I win respect and praise
more validly than this: burial of my
brother?”
5. “Tyranny …can lay the law down any
way it wants.”
6. “Your view is hardly shared by all these
Thebans here.”
7. “So, slighting one, you would salute the
other?”
8. “The just and unjust do not urge an equal
claim.”
9. “Not even death can metamorphose hate
to love.”