Work Review Form for "Antigone" by Sophocles

 

HOW TO SUBMIT:  Copy the questions below into your word processor and fill in your answers (preferably in a different font or in boldface).  Save a copy.  Open Oncourse:InTouch:Drop Box:Antigone and upload your word-processing file.  10 points if ontime and passing work (5 points if up to a week late; thereafter 2 points)

 

ASSIGNMENT:  Read NILshorter8, pp. 1617-1653.  (Reading from selections of critical articles is optional. 

For help with understanding the play, read selectively at Andrew Wilson's site at http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~loxias/antigone.htm

For background on the mythological story, see http://www.usask.ca/antharch/cnea/CourseNotes/AntBckgnd.html

You may also find interesting the Related Links page provided by the Norton Litweb site at http://www.wwnorton.com/introlit/drama_sophocles4.htm

 

Your name:   

 

To earn points, answer ALL of the following questions about the play*:

  1. What reasons does Antigone give for burying Polyneices?  What reasons does Creon for banning the burial? 
  2. Creon has declared a public stoning for those who violate his edict. What makes him change his mind and decide on a more private death for Antigone?
  3. In lines 368–411, the Chorus defines man and his relationship to nature. How does this fit into the conflict between Creon and Antigone?
  4. In lines 717–30, Creon defines a good ruler. Are there problems with this definition? How do his actions conflict with his words?
  5. Teiresias plays a crucial role in Antigone. How might his blindness and gender neutrality (he is usually considered to be both male and female) relate to his understanding of Antigone's situation?
  6. Why does Haemon argue against his father AND why does he kill himself?
  7. Argue for or against the relevance of Sophocles' play (written in the 5th century B.C.E. [before the common era]) in the 21st century.  For example, the French playwright Jean Anouilh wrote an adaptation of the play staged in Paris while occupied by Nazi troops in World War II.  Do you see parallels to this story in any modern conflicts between the individual and the state?

*Adapted from LITWEB materials at http://www.wwnorton.com/introlit/drama_sophocles2.htm.