Sophocles’ Antigone 2
February 5, 2008
Agenda
• Recap and Update
– Plot and Play
– Tragic Themes
– Gender Dialectics
• Problem of the Chorus
– “We Are Too Old”
• Gender Dialectics in Antigone
– Two Views
– Your Views
2
Recap and Update
• Plot and Play
• Tragic Themes
• Gender Dialectics
3
Myth Background: House of Thebes
Labdacus
Laius
Oedipus
Menoeceus
Jocasta
Creon Eurydice
Jocasta
Polynices Eteocles Antigone Ismene
Haemon
Megareus
Play Analysis (nums. refer to Penguin pages)
Prologue (59 ff.)
Antigone, Ismene (burial)
Parodos (choral entry ode, 65 f.)
victory song
1st episode
Creon, Sentry (Polynices’ burial)
1st stasimon (choral ode, 76 f.)
“Many the wonders …”
2nd episode
Sentry, Creon; Creon, Antigone,
Ismene (Creon-Antigone agōn)
2nd stasimon (91 f.)
“Blest they who escape misfortune”
3rd episode (92 ff.)
Creon, Haemon (agōn)
3rd stasimon (101)
madness of erōs
4th episode (101 ff.)
Choral dialogue (kommos) w/
Antigone (bride of death); Antigone,
Creon
4th stasimon (108 f.)
myth parallels to Antigone
5th episode (110 ff.)
Tiresias, Creon (prophecy, warning)
Hyporchema (choral ode, 118 f.)
Dionysus save the day!
Exodos (119 ff.)
Messenger, Eurydice; Choral
dialogue (kommos) w/ Creon
5
Antigone – Tragic Themes
• Hubris (arrogance, transgression)
– “Zeus hates with a vengeance all bravado, / the mighty boasts
of men” (Chorus, p. 65)
• Cycle of suffering
– “… once / the gods have rocked a house to its foundations / the
ruin will never cease, cresting on and on” (Chorus, p. 91)
• Atē (delusion, ruin)
– “Sooner or later / foul is fair, / fair is foul / to the man the gods
will ruin” (Chorus, p. 92)
• Knowledge too late
– “Too late, / too late, you see what justice means” (Chorus
Leader, p. 124)
6
Problem of the Chorus
“We Are Too Old”
7
Choral Reflections – What Are They
About?
• “Numberless wonders / terrible wonders walk the
world but none the match for man. … But the city
casts out that man who weds himself to
inhumanity…” (1st stasimon, pp. 76-77)
• “Love (erōs)! … you have ignited this, / this kindred
strife, father and son at war” (3rd stasimon, p. 101)
• “You went too far, the last limits of daring – / …. I
wonder ... / do you pay for your father's terrible
ordeal?” (choral dialogue with Antigone, p. 103)
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Choral Reflections, Myth Parallels:
On Target? (4th stasimon, pp. 108 f.)
1. Danaë (lines 1035 ff.)
– Perseus’ mother
– imprisoned pregnant
» in bronze chamber
» floating casket
2. Lycurgus (1051 ff.)
– opposed Dionysus
– killed son
– imprisoned in cave
3. Cleopatra (1066 ff.)
– divorced by husband
– imprisoned by
husband, whose …
– new wife
» blinds
» buries
children
9
Choral Reflections, Myth Parallels
Do They Fit? (pp. 108 f.)
1. Danaë (lines 1035 ff.)
–
–
–
–
–
both royal
locked away
reversal
inescapable fate
Danae = life, birth
»
not in love with love
3. Cleopatra (1066 ff.)
–
–
–
–
–
kings queen = EGO
children = anyone
affected
Ant = Cleo
bad marriage, bad karma
walled in stone
2. Lycurgus (1051 ff.)
–
Lyc = Ant
»
–
–
–
but reversed
Gods = Creon
religion higher
plus knowledge too late
10
Gender Dialectics in Antigone
• Two Views
• Your Views
11
Gender Dialectic in Antigone: 2 Readings
Hegel’s…
• Antigone
– divine law
– private sphere
versus
• Creon
– human law
– public sphere
Butler’s…
• Incest as
– interrogation of gender
• Antigone as
– proto-feminist
Antigone’s Claim (Butler’s
book) shows “how a culture of
normative heterosexuality
obstructs our capacity to see
what sexual freedom and
political agency could be” (book
blurb)
12
Parallel Antinomies
ANTIGONE
female
private
inside
oikos (family, household)
lamentation
divine law
CREON
male
public
outside
polis (politics, city)
retribution
human law
CREON:
“I am not the man, not now: she is the man / if this victory goes to her
and she goes free” (p. 83)
13