Conventions of Antigone
Yusra Hashmi, Britney Laber, Shelby Nelson, Kirsten Ronning, Julie
Thamby, and Jocelyn Wang
Review
● Episodic: Many episodes relatively ‘selfcontained’. Requires many short scenes, not
typically act based.
● Climactic: Act-based. Usually connected
together in an overall arching plot. Has a
more definite shape; ‘Freytag’s Pyramid.’
:
○ ‘At the climax, something changes.’
Formal Structure
● Prologos: Ancient Greek, prologue or
preface
● Episodes: The part of the Greek tragedy
between two choric songs
● Stasima: The choric songs that divide the
tragedy into various parts
● Exodos: The final concluding scene
Use of Chorus
Use of Chorus
● Theban Elders
● Comment on the themes and react as
perhaps the citizens of Thebes would
● Prepare the audience for key elements
Use of Chorus
“Wisdom is far the chief element in happiness
and, secondly, no irreverence towards the
gods. But great words of haughty men exact in
retribution blows as great and in old age teach
wisdom” ( 2105).
Conventional Characters
● Possess traits that are expected and traditional
● Ismene
○ “Damsel”
● Messengers
○ Provide the audience with essential information
○ Indirectly, address news to other characters in drama
Conventional Characters
Ismene:
“You ought to realize we are only women, not
meant in nature to fight against men, and that
we are ruled, by those who are stronger”
(2075).
Conventional Characters
Messenger:
“Haemon is dead; the hand that shed his blood
was his very own” (2101).
“The queen is dead. She was indeed true
mother of the dead son” (2103).
High Status Characters
● Aristotle’s Poetics
○ main character of tragedy must be of
higher status than the audience
● Allows for distinction between audience and
main character
● There are two types: relaxed and secure vs.
threatened and oppressive
High Status Characters
Antigone
● Princess
● Ismene to Antigone
○ “If you can do it. But you are in love with
the impossible” (2076).
High Status Characters
Creon
● King of Thebes
● “this man shall no one honor with a grave
and none shall mourn. You shall leave him
without burial”(2079).
Conventions of Tragic Hero
Antigone vs Creon
1. Poetics: good tragic plot= reversal of
fortune(peripeteia)
“I will bring her where the path is loneliest, and
hide her alive...give just enough food as shall
suffice” (833-35)
“We saw her, hanging by her neck”(1288-89)
1. Poetics: good tragic plot= reversal of
fortune(peripeteia)
“Now here I am, holding all authority and the
throne”(191)
“Lead me away...who killed you my son, and
you, too, lady”(1402-1403)
2. Flaw/error of judgement/imperfect (to
relate), feelings of pity and fear
“given that we can identify with the hero as
being something like us”(Reading ‘Dramatic’
Literature Appendix)
● Fall to bad fortune
caused by hamartia
2. Flaw/error of judgement/imperfect (to
relate), feelings of pity and fear
“And did you dare disobey that law? Yes, it was
not Zeus that made the proclamation” (493-95)
“There is nothing shameful in honoring my
brother”(559)
Flaw lies in her stubborn loyalty to her family
and to her convictions-Civil Disobedience
2. Flaw/error of judgement/imperfect (to
relate), feelings of pity and fear
“Must I rule the land by someone else’s judgment rather
than my own?” (792)
“There is nothing worse than disobedience to authority. It
destroys cities, demolishes homes...we must stand on
the side of what is orderly”(723-26)
“Never in the past have I turned from your advice” (1039)
to “...will not make a merchandise of my decisions”
(1120)
Flaws: Pride, Stubbornness, Civil Obedience
3. Poetics: Pity and fear purged through
Catharsis
“Tomb, bridal chamber, prison forever dug in
rock, it is to you I am going....my hope is strong
that my coming will be welcome”(2094)
3. Poetics: Pity and fear purged through
Catharsis
“But great words of haughty men exact in
retribution blows as great an in old age teach
wisdom”(2105)
4. Anagnorisis= recognition
“I know that I will die...even if you had
not doomed me by proclamation…”(504-05).
“This girl has learned her insolence before this,
when she broke the established laws” (524).
4. Anagnorisis= recognition
“These acts can never be made to fit another to
free me from the guilt. It was I that killed her.”
(1382-83)
“Wisdom is far the chief element in happiness,
and secondly, no irreverence towards the gods”
(1409-10)
Connections
● Nick Carraway (The Great Gatsby) serves as
the moral conscience like the Chorus.
● Like the tragic heroes in Antigone, the
leaders of today’s society are neither wholly
good, nor wholly evil
● Ancient Greek women not appreciated, no
rights - Antigone going against social norm
Jeopardy
http://www.superteachertools.
us/jeopardyx/jeopardy-review-game.php?
gamefile=1462565#.VehD43hvZFI