Read an in-depth analysis of Creon. Blonde, full-figured, and radiantly beautiful, the laughing, talkative Ismene is the good girl of the family. She is reasonable and understands her place, bowing to Creon's edict and attempting to dissuade Antigone from her act of rebellion. As in Sophocles' play, she is Antigone's foil. Ultimately she will recant and beg Antigone to allow her to join her in death. Though Antigone refuses, Ismene's conversion indicates how her resistance is contagious.
Haemon appears twice in the play. In the first, he is rejected by Antigone; in the second, he begs his father for Antigone's life. Creon's refusal ruins his exalted view of his father. He too refuses the happiness that Creon offers him and follows Antigone to a tragic demise. A traditional figure in Greek drama, the Nurse is an addition to the Antigone legend. She introduces an everyday, maternal element into the play that heightens the strangeness of the tragic world.
Fussy, affectionate, and reassuring, she suffers no drama or tragedy but exists in the day-to-day tasks of caring for the two sisters. Her comforting presence returns Antigone to her girlhood.
In her arms, Antigone superstitiously invests the Nurse with the power to ward off evil and keep her safe. Anouilh reduces the Chorus, who appears as narrator and commentator. The Chorus frames the play with a prologue and epilogue, introducing the action and characters under the sign of fatality. In presenting the tragedy, the Chorus instructs the audience on proper spectatorship, reappearing at the tragedy's pivotal moments to comment on the action or the nature of tragedy itself.
Along with playing narrator, the Chorus also attempts to intercede throughout the play, whether on the behalf of the Theban people or the horrified spectators. Read an in-depth analysis of Chorus. Like Oedipus, her insistence on her desire beyond the limits of reason render her ugly, abject, tabooed. In refusing to cede it, she moves outside the human community.
As with Oedipus, it is precisely her moment of abjection, when she has lost all hope, when her tragic beauty emerges. Her beauty exerts a chilling fascination.
As Ismene notes, Antigone is not beautiful like the rest, but beautiful in a way that stops children in the street, beautiful in a way that unsettles, frightens, and awes. SparkTeach Teacher's Handbook. Themes Motifs Symbols. Important Quotes Explained.
The Sentry brings the news that Polyneices has been buried, and later captures Antigone. His speech is an interesting experiment in the history of Greek drama, as it attempts to approximate the rhythms and diction of natural speech. Similarly, his psychology reflects that of the simplest logic and reason - his only concern is preserving his life, and he asks basic questions, contrasting with Creon, Haemon, Ismene, and Antigone's lofty speeches on principles and ethics.
Haemon is the son of Creon and Eurydice and is engaged to be married to Antigone. In a dramatic dialogue with his father, Haemon defends the moral basis of Antigone's actions while warning his father that the people of Thebes sympathize with her determination to bury Polyneices.
He and his father part in anger, as he simply asks his father to do what's right for Thebes, and his father stubbornly follows the path of least resistance. Haemon's devotion to Antigone is clear; at her death, he is so distraught that he tries to kill his father and then kills himself.
Teiresias, or Tiresias, is a blind prophet who warns Creon that the gods do not approve of his treatment of Polyneices' body or the punishment of Antigone. Creon insults Teiresias, believing that he's simply blackmailing him for money, but the prophet responds with a prophecy foretelling the death of one of Creon's children and a warning that all of Greece will despise the king if he does not relent. Creon realizes that Teiresias has never been wrong and that he must do his bidding.
The prophet is an important part of Sophocles' vision: through Teiresias, the will of the gods is made known, and his very existence implies that there is a definite will of the gods that is far above the domain of man's law. He leaves to follow Eurydice when she runs off in grief. Eurydice is Creon's wife and Haemon's mother. Broken by her son's suicide, she kills herself, calling curses down on Creon for having caused the tragedy.
Creon, already broken by Haemon's death, is forced to confront the suicide of his wife as well. The Question and Answer section for Antigone is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel. The chorus is an important element of drama. In Antigone, it serves multiple purposes, such as providing background information about events that occurred before the start of the play.
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