I definitely agree with Matt that the third suicide was overkill. I don’t agree, however, that the Chorus is pointless. If you read closely into the chorus parts, you can see how each of the Odes foreshadows the events of the play. Ode I talks about how wonderful man is that he can conquer animals, use his skills to make tools, etc. Although man can conquer many things, he cannot conquer death. Ode II is about how the gods can be terrible to people when they do bad things and that, “Fate words most for woe/ With Folly’s fairest show.” I think this means that the gods determine fate and that fate usually ends up making life terrible for people. Ode III says that nobody can conquer love. Ode VI says more about destiny and gives specific examples of a lot of people who were locked away in stone prisons or killed for various reasons. When you read each of these Odes, you can easily see the foreshadowing that each Ode brings. Ode III foreshadows that somebody (Haimon) will be destroyed because he cannot conquer love. Odes II & IV show the importance of fate in how this play turns out. Ode IV also shows what will happen to Antigone. Although these Odes may seem to reiterate what those of us reading the play already know, they help to foreshadow the events of the play for an audience that is unfamiliar with the story.
As far as the thing about Antigone being the tragic hero, I always thought that was Creon. He is the one left to suffer at the end of the story while the other characters were else relieved of their suffering. It is his hubris that leads to the death of Antigone, Haimon, and Eurydice. I don’t think Antigone had a fault that led to the downfall in this play. She buried her brother, but she was doing that to bring honor to her brother and save Thebes from a plague, not to be arrogant as others have suggested. By not letting Ismene be killed, Antigone was trying to save her innocent sister, not be pitiful. That’s what I think, anyway.
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Wow, a double attack from both DW and Al. What was I thinking. Anyway, about what I WAS thinking. Allow me to explain. I am not saying that Antigone did the wrong thing in burying her brother (I actually think it was the right thing), but I don't care if it was the right thing or not. It's not even a question of why she did it. She did it because she loved her brother and thought Creon's edict was unjust. It is, however, a question of why she did it the way she did it. Why make such a big show of it? Why not try to reason with Creon? The answer is that she wanted to undermine the state. This is the only answer because with any other motivation different avenues would have been available. Now the question is of course, why did she want to undermine the state? My answer, and this is my opinion, because she wanted to be pitiable. She wanted the feeling that everything in the universe is against her. In her monologue (not a soliloquy because it was addressed at someone ;) ) she talks about how pitiable her situation is. She says how she is going to an unjust death completely abandoned by everyone in the world. Well, she's not really completely abandoned. She has a fiance that adores her so much that her kills himself out of grief of her death. She has a sister that loves her immensely and wants to die with her. That is pitiful (notice the difference), she is so self absorbed that her entire perception of reality has been altered to coalesce with her self image of herself as righteous, self-sacrificing victim. Now why is she like this? My diagnosis, and I'm not a doctor or anything, is that it all goes back to the daddy (brother dearest) problem. (Oh, just something I thought of that I want to throw in now so that I don't forget it. This is either in response to DW or Al, whichever one said that Antigone not letting Ismene die too was done purely out of wanting to save her sister's life. Remember, during the prologue, Antigone wants Ismene to come and help her. Antigone knows that it is basically a suicide mission. She didn't have reservations about Ismene's life then. I guess this kind of shoots me in the foot though about Antigone wanting to be the sole victim. Avast! I can explain.)(Oh, another comment, or more of a clarification, when I say that Antigone is pitiable, that is something completely different from pitiful. Pitiful is an insult. The definition of pitiful is ". evoking or deserving contempt by smallness, poor quality, etc.: pitiful attempts" while the definition of pitiable is " evoking or deserving pity; lamentable" the former of which I think definitely applies to Antigone. If not for the reasons that I said, then at least for the simple fact that she died a brutal death for a just cause. That is pitiable.)
And I think that does it.
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