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Summary of Antigone


            The play Antigone, written by Sophocles, is one play from a serious of tragic plays that all partake in the same consecutive events that are separated in three different parts. The last of the Oedipus Plays is Antigone. The story is set in Thebes during the ancient Greece. Antigone is the daughter or King Oedipus. Antigone and her sister Ismene, are the last two left carrying the burden of the family curse that has been passed down for a few generations. The text quotations I have chosen for my analysis are lines 487-508. Antigone has been caught giving her brother Polynices a proper burial by sprinkling dirt and providing the water when Creon (Antigone's uncle and current ruler of Thebes) ordered the citizens not to dare any attempts. Creon has strongly emphasized that death will bestow anyone who dares not to abide to his ruling. Currently in the story, the guards have brought Antigone in to the ruler and she openly admits to her deed. The only way she is defending herself is by saying that her reasoning as to why she did the burial. Antigone takes a moral standpoint by stating, "I'd never let any man's arrogance bully me into breaking the God's laws. "(497-498). She is refusing to turn her back onto her family whether that acts they have been committed were good or bad. .
             This to me speaks powerfully about Antigone's personality and character. She chooses to disobey the rulers order, even though she understands the stated consequences of deaths as she earlier in the play discusses with her sister Ismene. She is willing to put her life on the line for an act of morality and heroism. What I like about her taken actions is that it was so unexpected! To see a young girl that is so noble and strong was something completely opposite of the ancient Greek traditional representation of women such as, damsels-in-distress or just the wives of the heroes; I feel like majority of stories included women in such ways.


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