"ANTIGONE" by Sophocles
NOTIONS TO BE MINDFULL (of)
Gender:Antigone & Ismene: Ismene reminds Antigone that they are only women and are relatively helpless.
"But you are in love / with the impossible" Antigone is a woman caught between obligations to two different men.The first is her dead brother, and the second is her hostile ruler.
Conscience versus Law: Antigone reasons that the next world is more important than this one.
"The time in which I must please those that are dead / is longer than I must please those of this world. / For there I shall lie forever"
The Chorus' questions about the possibility that God might have buried Polyneices reveals how uncertain they are about the justice of Creon's decree.
Tyranny: The Chorus' questions about the possibility that God might have buried "My Lord: I wonder, could this be God’s doing?" Polyneices reveals how uncertain they are about the justice of Creon's decree. Creon's outraged reaction and his imperious threatening of the Sentry show some of his weaknesses. He is prone to anger and has the markings of a tyrant. His values emphasize law and hierarchy.
Pride: [chorus]"may he never think my thoughts!" ( 411). This closing suggests that recklessness and pride are sins that can take hold in all men.
Passion/emotion limit reason even further.
Man’s perceptions are limited...therefore, man cannot see true reality/justice – cannot have true reason...hubris (complete belief in oneself, to the exclusion of reason, is a blindness) becomes the adversary