Just joking, although there are many more than 27 questions for you to consider about this play!
Your new question for today: To what extent do you think we are meant to sympathise with Antigone?
Answers need not be long, but must display use of brain matter........
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12 comments:
I believe that we are meant to fully sympathise with Antigone, she is the heroine of the text, to her intended greek audience she would appear to have all desired attributes. She is noble born, wealthy, pious, passionate and humble.
But do you think that the fact that she is a woman might not have had an impact on the Greek audience of the time? How do we, as a modern audience, differ from the intended audience? Did Sophocles uphold the values of his contemporary society or not?
I believe the audience is meant to feel a lot of sympathy for Antigone, which is quite a daring move by Sophocles considering the audience the play was intended for. Creon, the noble king, is the enemy and Antigone the heroine, despite the crime she committed. It appears that he challenged the values of his society, which had a tendency to undermine the role of women - there was certainly no equal rights movement as there is today, and you wpould think taht a traditional greek audience would celebrate Creon's decision to entomb Antigone. However, she justifies her actions as being the will of the gods and ones she is willing to die for, making them noble and understandable, even accepted. Other characters, such as Haemon and Ismene, come to accept her actions as well, causing her to be celebrated as a typical heroine working against impossible odds. However, the lesson Creon learns at the end of the play is significant - he comes to his senses and decides to release Antigone, and later realizes his decisions have cost him his family. If Creon had not come to this realization and remained an evil tyrant, than I don't think the play would have been as well accepted by a traditional Greek audience. Creon's actions needed to be justified as well, as he is a man, and a leader.
Interesting question, that.
-Charlotte.
I think we are meant to sympathise more with Antigone’s situation than Antigone herself. Though granted her being a female in the time the play was written would have more of an effect on the audience, and been more out of the ordinary than if it was a male going against the law to do what is honorable, if it were a male I don’t think it would draw so much as a blink from the audience. So the fact Antigone is a female makes it all the more interesting and perhaps shocking. While the audience then could have no complaints about her actions to do what is right, Antigone being female would perhaps have reinforced how important the issue was, that even a female would act to put it right, though it might have been made more acceptable by Antigone having no male relatives alive to fix the problem for her. So because of her crisis you feel sympathy for her as it takes on a religious loyalty, which all people of that time felt strongly about whether male or female, that even though she is acting out of the accepted female role, her reason is just.
i honestly don't feel like replying after the replies i just read, as everyone answers in such a sophisticated manner and i find it hard enough to get what i want to say out when i'm speaking, so i seriously don't know how i'm going to type it, also considering how all technology hates me, i swear it can sense fear. anyway,i guess i have to give it a go. i think that we as modern audience definately sympathise with antigone, as mentioned by previous bloggers, she is the herione. she has emotional integrity, never sees herself as a victim and has no need for sympathy from others. as long as she is true to herself, her brother's wishes and the Gods, she is content. however, the greek audience who would have watched this play in the era it was written, would have viewed antigone and her actions very differently. she would have been seen as rebellious, stubborn and selfish, having gone against the rules of the state to find a sense of justice for herself. i can't decide whether sophocles just thought ahead of his time and wanted antigone to be a heroine, or that he intended for her to be perceived the way the greek audiences did. i don't think that made any sense, but i'm trying. personally, i sympathise with antigone, and even admire her character, as i believe what she did was just. but, this might be seen as me doing a feminist reading *wink wink miss bares* haha i had to show i knew something from our text book. anyway, my view in a nutshell, antigone is a heroine to us and her acts are justified, but to the greek audience of that day, she may have been seen as something completely different. i have to end this blog here as it smells like something is burning. i have either put the oven to high for dinner or the computer is on fire because of it's immense dislike for me. see you at school tomorrow.
oh and by the way, i know my username is lame, but hey, it's me we're talking about, it had to be lame.
I always feel dumb writing my comment after everyone else has justified their points so brilliantly.
As (at the time that the play was written) people would have valued the laws of the Gods highly, Antigone would have attracted more sympathy from the audience than other heroines presented at that time. Antigone attracts more sympathy as she is obeying the highest order, that the audience would believe was most important, and being punished for it. As described by Haemon, Antigone is "doomed to the cruelest death...that ever woman suffered for an honourable action", as it would have been considered as an honourable action by the audience, it is what each spectator would hve percieved as right, because of their love and respect of the Gods. In turn, Creon is made to play the role of a villan by the same value. He does what he wants whereas, as a leader, his role should be to reinforce the laws of the Gods. Instead, he is punishing someone else for doing so.
It is because of this that Antigone would have attracted more sympathy than another woman with different intentions, however, she still wouldn't have attracted as much sympathy for this reason as a male hero would have.
Antigone also gets a large amount of sympathy from the audience as she in honouring her brother, a male, who died fighting for his beliefs (as male heros do). She would have been thought of as a hero for honouring a male and in turn, her circumstance would be viewed as even more tragic.
Also, Antigone's background could induce more sympathy for the character. The tragic death of her family, leaving her an orphan with only her sister and domineering uncle, would evoke more sympathy from the audience. Her high social standing could also play a part, making her look like the typical hero in any Greek tragedy, as they ususally have high social standing.
Overall, there are many factors that influnce the amount of sympathy felt for Antigone, most of them stemming from her doing something that is perceived as right, but being punished for it, like obeying the Gods, honouring a male member of her family and trying to give herself some satisfaction after a family history of death and pain.
Yeah, the audience is made to feel a maximum amount of sympathy for Antigone, but the realisation of this is dulled by the fact that she bold throughout the story. If she was curled up in a corner crying her eyes out, it would have been obvious what a raw deal she really got.
PS. the family history could also work the other way, causing the audience to believe that her family is unintelligent and reckless for getting themselves killed so easily.
another PS to you spell stemming with two m's? it doesn't look right.
Sorry for the spelling mistakes people, i should have read over that before i published it. Oh well, you'll live.
Oh, and i thought we had decided on 28 questions, not 27?
Through out the play Antigone is shown as being a strong and passionate heroine, this leads the audience to sympathise Antigone greatly, however modern audiences would sympathise with her character more than those of ancient Greece.
A womans place in ancient place was far below that of a man, women were hardly respected and they were expected to obey men without question. This makes the character of Antigone quite unusual by Greek standards. As a young, passionate and independant women its fair to assume that Antigone wouldn't get much sympathy from the audience without adding in extreme circumstances. Some things that would have gained her character sympathy would be that she was serving the Gods wishes and that her Leader, Creon, was acting in defiance of the Gods. The Greeeks were deeply religous and valued the will of the gods above all else, who ever you were, King or servant, you had to obey their commands. The fact that Antigone is not just acting on her own but rather under the laws of the Gods would cause ancient Greek audiences to sympathise more with her character. Also as i said before Creon was going against the will of the Gods, this would cause many of the ancient Greeks to go agianst Creon, even though he is the strong male leader that would normaly be considered the hero of a play. This would gain Antigone more sympathy as she would be seen as trying to right the wrongs of the King who was punishing people for obeying the Gods.
As a modern audience we have more sympathy for Antigone because not only do we recognise her actions as the right ones but we also see the play from a different perspective. In our society women are viewed as equals and their place is no less than that of a man. We would feel sympathy for Antigone because she is a repressed woman who is only trying to do the right thing by buring her brother and going against the tyranical Creon, who had become consumed with his power. By the end of the play audiences would sympathise even more with Antigone as Creon's change of mind would prove that she had been right. It would make the audience more inclined to sympathise with her as she had died doing the right thing by her society and her religon.
antigones actions and dialogue is so out of that cookie cut shape for women back then, she'd be hated but secretly admired. there is no real sympathy for her in the text, perhaps hatred against her enemies but not really for her. Even in her death, its more about Haemons death and loss.
anitgone would be the height of pythos NOW but not back then. not in ancient greece, that sort of attidue would probably get a girl killed or tortured, this was only accepted because a man wrote that dialogue.
antgone is an object wielded in the text, no real emotion is meant to be for her, only those (men) around her.
yes, i know i dont have any quotes but im doing this rougly.
Antigone is portrayed to generate a degree of sympathy, evident in the way her family has suffered in the past. She is alone, her own sister does not share her same desires for action, and her defiance of the law is to be punished by death. Even though the audience of the time were less sympathetic towards women, there would have been a connection to her on the basis of losing family members. As an audience we sympathise much more with Antigone, as the view of women in this day is far more about equality than it was in the days of Sophocles. Unfortunately because of Antigone's rash nature, the audience tends to accept that her behaviour is deserving of her punishment, at least to some degree. The other characters of the play begin by accepting punishments also, but most realise the higher purpose she is serving (the will of the gods) and rationalise her actions. Haemon goes as far as defying his father's word, a crime in itself in Greece, because he sees reasoning in Antigone's actions.
The real question would be would our sympathy change if Antigone were a man? Because the opinion of men, especially in the Greek age, was far greater, and it is likely that a male "Antigone" would have been more of a protagonist, and have been the character that the audience related to.
I'm in a rush, so I'll keep this short.
A modern day interpretation of Antigone's part in the play would lead to the impression that she was meant to be fully sympathized with, being the protagonist and all. Back in period Greece, however, I believe that the fact that she is a woman going again the state (and it's male king) could result in little to no audience empathy for Antigone. If so, suppression was quite rife. Effective, though ...
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