Events:
Two of Oedipus' sons battle for control of Thebes because Oedipus died. Eteocles had been in control when Polynices raised a foreign army to fight for the throne. The two brothers killed each other in battle and Creon, the brother in law of Oedipus, took the throne. He buried Eteocles with honor but call Polynices a traitor and left his body unburied. He banned any citizen to mourn or bury the body, doing do would be punishable by death. Antigone and Ismene are sisters and are also the sisters of the brothers who killed eachother. Ismene is very beautiful but Haemon asks Antigone to marry him instead of Ismene at a party. Late at night Antigone sneaks out to bury her brother's body, knowing that she will be killed and she will never get to marry Haemon.
Reflection:
The introduction to this tragedy already has more tragic elements than some of the entire plays which we have read earlier. This encompasses the belief of the author of the article we wrote in class who suggests that the Greeks were the greatest tragedy writers. The Greeks understood the elements that made a story tragic, and portrayed them in their plays so well that any audience member would feel a great amount of sympathy for the situations and sufferings of the characters. Anouilh, in his interpretation of the play Antigone, gives the reader the context of the play by having the chorus relay the past facts to the audience. I noticed while reading that the chorus is very neutral while giving the information. This supports the argument that the best tragedies include a conflict between two sides, but neither side is right or wrong, allowing the reader to identify with both. The neutral telling of the information by the chorus gives no bias either way in whether the decisions made by the characters were right or wrong. This way, the reader is unaltered in how they view the characters, allowing them to identify with both conflicting sides.
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