IB English A Literature

I enjoyed reading both Oedipus and Antigone and I liked them equally. In the play Antigone, it had quite a bit of deaths and tragedy. I noticed that by the end of the play almost all of the important characters were dead which I was not expecting in the beginning. Out of all of the characters that faced death, each one died in a different way. Examples of that is how Antigone, Eurydice, and Haemon all commit suicide. It must have been really hard for the people who were close to everyone that died and the feeling of loss is hard to get over. Antigone changed a bit throughout the play. I find it really weird that she is engaged to her cousin Haemon.

In the play I noticed that I see myself like Ismene for a few reasons. Ismene is a kind character who is known as a good daughter to her family. She also has blonde hair and I would also say that she is afraid of death. I relate to Ismene because in my family I am the  good daughter. I also have blonde hair, just like ismene.  

To answer the question of who is the tragic hero, you must define the two words. A hero is admired or idealized for courage, A tragedy in an event causing great suffering and destruction. I believe the person who fits these definitions best is Antigone. She is admired by the population of Thebes and idolized for upholding the gods’ rule.” Cities grieving for sons unburied(l.853)” She causes a great tragedy as she kills herself and causes Euripides and Haemon to do the same. Although what she did, I don’t think, was very heroic, the people of Thebes did, and in the end, she pleased them and death, but death took her anyway. That may have even been her plan or that of the gods. “And even if I die in the act, that death will be the glory.” & “I have longer to please the dead than the living. (l.86-89)” In the end, Creon was seen as horrible, and Antigone was the woman who defied the law of man to do what she thought was right. Creon did what he thought was correct as punishment for his unruly nephew who brought war to Thebes; whether his cause was just is a matter of perspective. Polyneices bringing the armies of other city-states to the door of Thebes was an unforgivable crime. That deserved punishment beyond life and into death. This deed was not heroic. It was not perceived as a heroic deed by the public. Yet he did it nonetheless. What he did was tragic, to cause great suffering to his nephew in death. The people saw a tragedy: a man who died in service to what he thought was right was punished for it after he had been proven wrong by the will of the gods and lost in battle. To that end, Antione is the closest match to a tragic hero, although Creon certainly suffered for his actions.

In my opinion the chapter was not as good as the last one we read. The story wasn’t good, and it was way too much trouble and to much happened in that time period. Also, some characters had again only a small introduction.

The most important and iconic part for me was the ‘burial’ of Polynices body. The conversation Antigone and Ismene had and all the consequences they must deal with. I love the act of respect they do to the body of her brother.

Something the author did well was the the scene etching with most of the characters. The way you can fell the emotions of Creon and you can understand the decisions they made.

One time I was a bit confused, at the end where Creon wants to exile himself, I can’t understand why. I mean exile yourself wouldn’t solve the problems. If I could step into the story, I would change his decision.

In my opinion the most interesting character was Antigone, because I could understand her reactions and her feelings. As I mentioned my favourite part is the burial of Polynices, there u can see what kind of a person Antigone is. Unlike her sister she didn’t fear the consequences and knew the price she must pay for that what she did.

What I learned from this reading was, that everything you do has consequences and can affect others. You should be careful what you say. Not every hero where’s a cape and not every person with a cape is a hero.

Antigone proved itself to be true to the genre of tragedy, far more than I could have expected it to be. Full of fortuitous twists, the emotions this play evoked ranged from surprise to remorse as well as the many unexpected feelings in between. One page led to the next and soon enough I was engrossed in a Greek masterpiece, full of love, hate, vengeance and death. Sophocles managed to engage and enthrall me in countless ways. Perhaps it was the stubborn and strong-willed protagonist or the incredulity of the plot, yet either way this play had me intrigued.

Death, the underlying theme of many tragedies was undeniably present in Antigone. Humanity has always been fascinated with death, it has been feared, studied respected and questioned. Antigone is no exception to humanity. Sophocles’ play exploits the realm of embracing death and fearing it, to wish for death and to dread it. This fascinated me. What happens after we die? I am sure that I am not alone when I say that this question has haunted and intrigued me for many years. The play does not answer that one big question, however it discusses our relationship with the thought of dying. The two main characters Antigone and Creon have opposing views. Antigone, a character that I admire, says, “Die I must, I’ve known it all my life” (p. 81, l.513).  Throughout the play she bluntly states that she does not care about death overpowering her, she embraces death, if it means that her brother will receive the burial he deserves. This demonstrates both her view of death and why I admire her as a character. Even if she is put to death as a result of her actions, she is ready to accept responsibility and ready to die. She has a strong sense of self and is willing to risk her life for what she believes in. On the opposing side there is Creon, the man that fears death. In my opinion Creon is a coward, a man who will do anything to avoid pain and loss of power. This fear is subtle and is harder to discern from the text, however it can be seen on page 125 when Creon says, “harbor of death, so choked, so hard to cleanse!-/Why me? Why are you killing me?” (pg. 125). This passage shows the fear in a man who believes his time is up, giving Creon opposite qualities of that of a hero, and illustrating his opposing view to those of Antigone. To me, both of these cases are absolute extremes. Does anyone really want to die? And does anyone really fear death? The answer to these questions, I am sure, would differ dramatically depending on age, health status, mental health, race, religion and culture. But the one thing I cannot help reflecting upon is how these crucial questions are still very much themes in today’s society, and how an author wrote about these timeless topics thousands of years ago?

As previously mentioned, I really admire and respect the character Antigone and all she portrayed. As the elder of two siblings and a observative in nature, I’ve noted obvious differences in family dynamics based on the line up. Oldest is typically the well-behaved golden child, middle is the more spontaneous, and the last is the do-no- wrong baby. As the oldest daughter, Antigone not only stepped out of this stereotype, but strayed as far away from it as she could. Suffering death in the eyes of everyone except her, who believed in something so much she invited it in. She also earned my respect when looking at societal norms of this time, between male and female. In the eyes of the majority, including the ruler Creon, Eteocle’s fought back for what he believed in, dying with respect and chivalry. However when Antigone does something she believes in she dies the dishonorable one, why is that? She as a woman, was not expected to lay her life down for anything. Antigone was supposed to be just another obedient, pretty face, such as her younger but more compliant and favored sister Ismene. Only men were respected for dying for their beliefs, and that was shown in this scenario, being viewed as a stupid girl for doing the very same thing as her male peers. To me, Antigone died an honorable death, just as honorable as Eteocles. It may be argued that the protagonist and the tragic hero of the story is Creon, but to me Antigone took the main role.

Antigone was a play filled with issues and topics that are still relevant today, this is why I enjoyed it so much. Every good piece of writing should raise questions. Antigone certainly did. Questions about death and humans relationship with it, questions regarding the position of a women as a gender and questions about fate and its inescapability. Was Antigone really the one making the decisions or was it all the work of the gods?

i liked the story of Antigone, but i liked oedipus better.

I liked this story because it was more suspenseful and it is not something i usually read but i enjoyed reading it, i also liked it because the main character is a woman. the character was very brave and loyal, i liked it a lot when she broke the law of Creon and buried her brother.

I did not like the character of Creon at all, he made me angry, the patriarchal ideas he had didn’t please me at all.
I really enjoyed the book because of Antigone, I really loved the character, it was a good story.

I enjoyed reading this play, it was well written, suspenseful, and had a very good climax and ending. Although, I still prefer Oedipus : The King over this story, simply because the story was so bizarre and uncanny, and very unpredictable, unlike it’s predecessor (when I first read it) I could not guess the events that were going to take place at all. But I will say, this story seemed much more realistic and had a classic moral of the story (Don’t be full of yourself) which I appreciate. I liked the characters in this story much better too, they all varied heavily and had their own different  motivations and struggles.

The characters in the story were well bred and I found myself rooting for too many people. My favorite characters were Haemon and Creon. Haemon was introduced after the conflict had been introduced, he attempted to sway his father to not kill Antigone and Ismene. His reasons were logical and true, he claimed to not be in the favor of Antigone (his soon wife to be) but Creon didn’t believe him but I did. He completely fooled me, the way he presented his points were in an organized manner, he  listened to what his father had to say and then countered everything he said with ease , that impressed me. I love characters that are able to put up a fake front and beneath all that, have them working out a good plan. Although, I hated that he killed himself after Antigone died, it reminded me of the play Romeo and Juliet, I disliked Romeo and Haemon because I found it childish and annoyingly stubborn for them to do that. Anyway, the reason I liked Creon was because of his character development. He begins the story as probably the most hated character. Selfish, self-centered and obsessed with his power. He made decisions that he wanted to, ones that would not benefit the country but ones that would show the people he was powerful.

“Am I rule this land for others-or myself? (pg,97).

This was brought to our attention and to Creon’s but he denies it and claims that ruling is only for the king and not for the people. He decided he was going to rule with an iron fist and anyone who defies him will be punished, until the arrival of Tiresias.

“They know this too, learn this by heart! The chariot of the sun will not race through so many circuits more, before you have surrendered one born of your own loins, your own flesh and blood, a corpse for corpses given in return, since you have thrust to the world below a child sprung for the world above…” (pg,115).

Tiresias tells him what was going to happen because of his actions and what he has to do to avoid it. At first, he’s stubborn and doesn’t want to cooperate with his advice, fully embodying Oedipus in this scene. Perhaps he got reminded of Oedipus’s case with his own actions, but he changed after Tiresias spoke with him, and he tried to fix his mistakes. Sure it probably wasn’t because he regretted his actions but at the very least he still acted, he went against his own desires and headstrong will to attempt to fix things, and for that I grant him the title of “My favorite character”, in this play.

  

This type of books are not the books I like to read but I gave it a try and actually I kinda liked it the story have a very interesting story with metaphors that can be applied to daily life, and it is impressing how a very old book can have so much relevance in topics of the modern life.

It was also one of mi few times reading an English book so this was a challenge for me

The story is full of interesting character and different points of view and beliefs making this a very suspensive history.

A very good example is when creon and Haemon started discussing about their points of view

Creon was a very powerful man who fought for what he belief but sometimes what you believe is not the way it is and Haemon thinks by himself but sometimes ask his father to look after the kingdom in other to help someone else.

At the end i really felt sad for creon and ismeme because they had to go thought a very difficult topic watching all his family die and I also felt sad for creon seeing how quick he lost his importance and was forced to be alone the time he had left.

I think Antigone is a very good history just as good as oedipus the king and just as the other book they both give us a very interesting metaphors. It is okay to make mistakes but what defines us as persons is how we react against problems…

Antigone is another tragic story written by Sophocles. I found the plot of Antigone is similar to Oedipus the King to some extent. They are both Greek plays surrounding the theme – of fate and free will. Antigone is a commendable person that deserves to be learned by all of us. First, she is particularly not fear of death and loyal to herself. 

Die I must, I’ve known it all my life —

how could I keep from knowing? —

even without your death-sentence ringing in my ears.

And if I am to die before my time

I consider that a gain. (p.82, 511-516)

From the quote above, which is said by Antigone, shows her determination and audacity to act right and meaningful. She is not fear and is daring to face death. People should not be loyal to the death, instead, should be loyal to themselves. Antigone is loyal to herself and her family; she insists on buying her brother, Polyneices’s dead body whom she loves and is loved by him. She knows that she will have the death penalty but she persists. This makes her life significant.

The characteristics of Oedipus and Creon are different, yet their outcomes are identical. They both experienced the loss of their relatives and the people they loved the most in their life as a result. However, Oedipus is stubborn when Creon is only slow on the uptake. Oedipus refuses to admit the things he does till the last minute, till he finds out the events collaborate with the things he does. On another hand, Creon notices right after Tiresias tells him the prophecies. He is worried and he decides to free Antigone. Unfortunately, by the time he decides to free Antigone, it is already too late and she already hangs herself. This is Creon’s fate. Fate dominates everyone. I realized Ancient Greek is a place where they believed in fate and Gods’ will. I would not like to like to live in Ancient Greek as I do not want to be “cursed” and dominant by the Gods. 

Loyal to the state vs loyal to family describes Antigone the best. Antigone is loyal to her family while Creon is loyal to the state. Antigone has gone through the loss of her family since she was still a child. Her mother commits suicide, her brother/dad, Oedipus is exiled, and her two older brothers are dead from fighting each other. After her parents’ death, I believe that Antigone cherishes her siblings greatly. She wants to bury Polyneice’s body as she wants him to be memorized. On another hand, Creon is loyal to the states and he claims that Polyneices is a traitor and he deserves to be left for the dogs and vultures to eat. In my opinion, there is no absolute right or wrong. One of them shows his loyalty to the state and one shows her loyalty to her family. They are both behaving ethically from their perspectives which affects by different backgrounds and personal experiences. Thus, they have contrasting actions on Polyneices’s death.

I could relate to Ismene when I was reading Antigone. Hong Kong was in an ambiguous situation in which people were protesting whether it was a part of China. Even though I believed that Hong Kong is not a part of China, I did not participate in any of the protests as I was fear of the “death”, and penalty. I respected Antigone when I was reading the play. I found she was courageous to face death and the penalty. she is not remotely scared and she persists in doing things that she thinks are ethical. This is a trait that everyone should learn from Antigone. People should be loyal to themselves instead of the other people or death. Therefore, I should also loyal to what I think is conscientious. 

Antigone was quite the shift for me from Oedipus. This change in tone and the sudden air of seriousness caught me slightly off-guard while reading Antigone. I caught myself approaching it differently, which I thought to be quite interesting. Even with this personal response, I oddly find it much more difficult to write. I truly think that the content of Antigone is much richer and requires lots of thought before you can fully understand it. What made me enjoy Antigone was the powerful lines and stanzas scattered throughout the play, and the two major points I thought were the most important within these lines were the social commentary on the patriarchy and the criticism of power.

Throughout Antigone, various characters make comments on women, about how they are inferior, and other misogynistic views from its time. Ismene comments to her sister, “Remember we are women, we’re not born to contend with men.” (pg. 62). The theme in this quote, which is presented very early, really shows off Antigone’s position in this world. It tells us just the start of what she’ll need to face in the story. This continues later when Creon refuses to succumb to Antigone, “Better to fall from power, if fall we must, at the hands of man–never be rated inferior to a woman, never” (pg. 94). This quote is certainly for the audience, as we come to understand Creon’s character better. We also sympathize with Antigone, as the question is raised; If Antigone was born a man, would Creon ignore her crime, and in turn prevent the tragedies that ensue? The answer is unclear, but the question is fair.

More questions can be raised on other impactful lines, despite the different topics. One of the big themes I picked up on in Antigone was the discussion of power. Antigone’s two brothers fought for it, Antigone herself refused to acknowledge the king’s authority and laws, and we just covered the power of men over women. The power of money was very directly called out in Antigone in the following stanza.

Money! Nothing worse in our lives, so current, rampant, so corrupting. Money– you demolish cities, root men from their homes, you train and twist good minds and set them on to the most atrocious schemes. No limit, you make them adept at every kind of outrage, every godless crime– money! (pg.73)

While reading this, it was instantly put in my notes to look at again during class discussion. It was so shockingly relevant to me that I almost didn’t want to believe it was written so long ago. It goes along with another quote which follows it soon after, “Lucky tyrants–the perquisites of power! Ruthless power to do and say whatever pleases them.” (pg. 84). Once again, we see this view of power being given to humanity and becoming corruptive. We see it all around us today, and even then, in Ancient Greece. Despite the thousands of years that have passed, power remains a constantly corruptive element to humans. And that amazed me.

We like to think that we’ve grown since “ancient times”, that we’re more mature, better than then, but we’re not (at least not as much as we like to think we are). This has been a lesson I’ve been learning while reading Oedipus and Antigone. While we’ve mostly moved past blatant sexism, you start to realize how much personal bias people have against women, and since they can’t be loud about these misogynistic feelings they act out in microaggressions against the female sex, which I’m sure most girls in this class have experienced, including me. In terms of greater history, women’s rights are still incredibly new and continue to be fought for today, take the current situation in Iran as an example. And this same concept still applies to power. Power and money still create unethical people, we still have those same “Lucky tyrants” that Antigone calls out. It’s a pattern that makes us wonder, will it ever get better? I guess we’ll have to see.

Antigone, written by Sophocles and a successor to Oedipus the King, our second assigned “book”. Once again, Sophocles was able to envelop me in the story and gave an enjoyable impression. Although I may have also enjoyed Antigone, it was not for the reasons that allowed me to enjoy Oedipus the King. In Oedipus, I enjoyed the irony that fell upon him. As for Antigone, I enjoyed reading the aftermath of the irony that fell upon Oedipus and the character development throughout the royal family of Thebes.

Antigone is the sequel to the tragic irony that fell upon Oedipus. When Oedipus the King concluded, we learn Oedipus is sent to exile, but did not learn the consequences that followed the tragedy until we were given the “summary” of Antigone. Antigone, the play happens years after the exile of Oedipus where we briefly told who sat on the throne and the events that followed up. I had read books where there was a time skip into the future and felt incomplete. However, the transition in Antigone felt very smooth and made it easy to understand what caused the upcoming event. After the death of her brothers in a duel, the “traitor,” Polynices was left outside to die as a reminder of what happens if you commit treason, Antigone became unpleased and planned to give his brother a proper burial despite it being a crime punishable by death. 

My own flesh and blood-deer sister, dear Ismene, how many griefs our father Oedipus handed down (p.59)

Here, we can see how the tragedy that falls upon Oedipus affects his daughter, Antigone. Later on, we also see Creon argue with Tiresias giving us a flashback of what happened to Oedipus when he tried to revolt against his prophecies. However, unlike Oedipus, Creon learned from him and agreed to listen to him after the Leader joined in.

my king-terrible prophecies. Well I know, since the hair on this old head went gray, he’s never lied to Thebes.

Creon: I know it myself-I’m shaken, torn. It’s a dreadful thing to yield (p.116).

Creon listens to the Leader and agreed to go against his will after the lesson given to Oedipus (p.117). In this sequel, we can see hints of how the tragedy that fell upon Oedipus affected the people of Thebes and the character development of two characters.

Ismene began as the “voice of reason” where she tries to convince Antigone to think properly about the consequences as she states she will give Polynices a proper burial (pp.59-64). After Antigone is placed on a “trail” for burying Polynices, Creon rushed into conclusion that her sister, Ismene must also be involved and summoned her (p.83). However, we get a surprising reaction from Ismene once she arrives (p. 86).

I did it, yes-if only she consents-I share the guilt, the consequences too (p.86).

Although Ismene began by being the “voice of reason” and attempted to convince Antigone that burying Polynices is worth the consequences, she immediately asks to share the consequences with Antigone despite not being part of the burying. This can be seen as Ismene sharing Antigone’s view. Although she did not act upon it. We also see a similar development with Creon. At first, we see Creon as a stone-willed man who places the city, Thebes above everything else, including his own family. Creon initially sentenced Antigone to death by stoning. However, later on, Creon had her sent into a cave far away from the city and pinned with a small ration. Creon mentions that this way, it will not dirty the city of Thebes with any possible sin and will allow the gods to rescue her if they wish. After the prophecy from Tiresias, Creon went against his will and gave the “traitor,” Polynices a proper burial before attempting to release Antigone from the cave. However, Creon messed up and did his task in a reverse order leading to Antigone’s suicide, and Haemon, his son, stabbed himself after a failed attempt to kill his father. Here, Creon cried a loud cry before returning to his castle, showing that he is still human and cares for his family. Once he arrives back, he receives the news of his wife, Eurydice has ended her own life. Creon became mortified and broke down revealing the human side of Creon.

I liked the story of Antigone a bit more the Oedipus the king. I find that Antigonus personality is interesting to me. The confidence, courage, and boldness that she displayed throughout the play was inspiring. Even going as far as disobeying Creon to give Polynices the proper burial that she felt he deserved. Creon promised death to anyone who tried to bury the body, but that did not stop her. She felt as though no one should be denied their rights to a proper burial, so she went ahead a buried him anyway. Although her character is very interesting, and she is trying to do what she thinks is the right thing, I do not think she is very likable. When Ismene says she does not want to help, Antigone is very rude to her, even going as far as saying she will hate her if she keeps quiet about the burial. Antigone is very rude and even though she is standing up for what she thinks is right, her attitude makes me find her unrelatable, and I honestly did not like her very much  

Both her and Creon make choices, some good, most are not great and there really is no winner. Antigone is dead, no longer bothering Creon but he has lost his wife and son. Not to mention that people could have Antigone’s actions living in their heads, prompting them to rebel against king Creon themselves. I that her actions are made even more powerful by her death, she died rebelling against Creon on. People will remember that Antigone gave her life going against the king’s wishes. I think what she has done will cause others to think about Creon’s actions and question how good of a king he really is. Even though he believes that a man who does not listen to his    best council men, is the worst man of all though he repeatedly fails to take the advice of his son, and Tiresias. Tiresias, being a prophet who is never wrong and Haemon, being his son, you would think they are trusted council men or at least trusted opinions.  

I did enjoy the story of Antigone. It was tragic but interesting. I wish I could have seen it as a play, the story is super intriguing and even though I do not like a lot of the characters. They play crucial roles in the story and make it much more enjoyable.  

Antigone written by Sophocles was a very intriguing book. As opposed to Oedipus I found the book more complex which made it more enjoyable to read. This is particularly because I found Antigone’s character fascinating. Her character is now someone that I admire and aspire to be like. A reason that I admire her is because of her close resemblance to a feminist and her ability to stand up against Creon. Finally making these connections the question of  “Who are we” in relation to Antigone arouse. 

Antigone is a character that I admired while reading this Greek tragedy. The qualities that I admire in Antigone are her bravery and loyalty to her own values. Her bravery is shown when she breaks Creon’s law to bury her brother; Polynices. Antigone does this because she believes that she is honoring her family and the law of the gods. I like that instead of conforming to the state law she boldly stood up for her family and her values. Even after Antigone is caught she does not ask for sympathy but says some courageous words to Creon;

“And if my present actions strike you as foolish, let’s just say I’ve been accused of folly by a fool” (p.82).

I commend Antigone for having the confidence to stand up to a tyrant even if it means sacrificing her life. Creon’s perspective however is that Antigone has a death wish and worships death;

“There let her pray to the one god she worships – death” (p.100).

He thinks this because he doesn’t understand Antigone’s perspective. Contrary to Creon I sympathize with Antigone and understand her motives. I believe that Antigone is willing to die fighting for a better world than the one she lives in and this is very admirable. Antigone’s traits and actions also make her an early example of a feminist. 

In Antigone one theme that connects to our world is sexism. Throughout the play, there are many examples of gender inequality, specifically men vs women. In our world, it is a common view that women are seen as inferior to men and that a woman should not challenge this. This is portrayed in Antigone when Antigone challenges Creon and his laws.  Due to Antigone’s actions, she can be viewed and compared to a modern-day feminist. Through bravery, she stands up against Creon who is an example of a misogynist. He does not like the fact that a girl is trying to overrule him, he states that

“ While I’m alive no woman is going to lord it over me” (p. 86).

This is very patriarchal of Creon but it is similar to the ideologies of today’s world. Ismene, Antigone’s sister however has a different perspective on how to act under Creon’s ruling. She would rather conform to Creon’s views because she is too scared to stand up for herself. An example of this is when she is asked to help bury Polynices, Ismene says

“Remember we are women we’re not born to contend with men” (p. 62).

She chooses to adhere to Creon’s rules out of fear and accept her place in society. Making this connection between the world of Antigone and our own world brought up the big question: who are we? As well as who should we be? By this, I mean comparing ourselves to the two sisters in this story. Antigone is a strong-minded, courageous feminist who is willing to die for a bigger cause. Or Ismene who puts her beliefs aside and conforms to other people out of fear. Moving forward, I am going to strive to be more like Antigone. 

Antigone, just like Oedipus the King, was another really good story involving Greek mythology. It all started by a conflict between two brothers, fighting for the throne, that ended with a war where they killed each other at the end. Creon assumed the throne once again and declared that Polyneices was a traitor and he shall not receive a proper burial while Eteocles, the second brother, was buried with all honors possible.
The story continues with Antigone burying the body even when the consequence for that was death, once she got caught doing it she did not even tried to deny what she had done. What I love about this story is that it shows how even between a family problems can and will always be found. The story can also make you feel sentimental, this because of how the two sisters talk with each other, how Antigone is not afraid of death since she thinks it will eventually come at her and talks about it like is the most common thing in the world, how Haimon and Antigone never had the chance to marry each other.
While the story is ongoing we can clearly see how Creon and Oedipus have really close similarities in their character, talking about how they always took precipitated decisions and almost never took time to think about the consequences of their actions, both of them were also really stubborn; the only place where I could clearly see a difference between them was while they were talking to Tiresias Oedipus did not take his advice and even offended the prophet while Creon actually took his advice but it was too late to change anything.
Reading Antigone made me think on why we value life so much and are afraid of death even more. I came to the conclusion that what we are scared of is not dying, what we are afraid of is that we do not know what comes after death. Antigone also made me remember about the mexican army motto, it translates to: “If death comes, welcome it with open arms”

Antigone by Sophocles was an enjoyable read for me. This story was dispersed with deep emotional losses that made me feel sorry and sad but also engaged within the story. The main reason for my sentimental sadness was because of how Antigone never had the chance to marry her fiancé Haemon, and how she must face death alone. I realized her whole family has lived for generations with a curse in their lineage and the fate of her whole family had to destroy everything for them. Sympathy goes to Antigone however, I really liked Antigone as the tragic hero of this story because she remains true both to the Gods and her brother. Although, she is faced with death, she refuses to go against either one, choosing to end her own life. Thus, she seals her testimony with her own blood and dies a tragic hero. I really respect and admire her bravery with her acts and how she faced her punishment with courage.

Antigone does not place herself in society. Rather than compromise her religious beliefs, she remains true to herself. Antigone is portrayed as a brave independent woman when nobody else supports her decision to bury Polynices. When it comes to burying Polynices herself, Antigone goes against Creon. The fact that the people of Thebes did not unite with Antigone could be seen as a factor to her downfall, even though they agreed with her. Despite this, Antigone does, and she willingly disobeyed Creon the King. This really makes me connect to the world and how it is different. Antigone believes in herself, her culture and the gods. She fought for what she believed, even if it may have costed her life. This motivates my courage in doing what I believe is right and how we all should too. Of course, not in the extreme measurement of possibly losing your life, but if we need a change and believe in it, we should act.

Antigone isn’t the only one in the play who stands alone. Creon also stands alone but in a different way. Even though the people of Thebes, except for Antigone, followed his law, they did not agree with it. The prophet Tiresias, who is never wrong, tells Creon that it is not a good idea to not bury Polynices and that it will anger the gods. Despite the wise advice from Tiresias, Creon still passes the law that states no one shall bury Polynices or mourn his death. He stands alone in this decision and is not willing to listen to the opinions of others. Not only is this a factor in Creon’s downfall but is also one in Antigone’s. Creon is portrayed as misogynistic, someone who thinks less of women. I can see why Crean is not praised like other characters in this book and that is largely based off what he says about women. Crean orders his slaves to take Antigone and Ismene inside: “[they] must be women now. / No more free running” (578-579), suggesting that freedom is absent from his definition of women.

Gender inequality with comparison to their specific expected roles in society were how men looked at women. I really would not want to live in the setting of this story based on the problems in the setting with femininity and sexism but also because of how I could get unlucky and also live in a prophecy. Despite the setting of this story, we can see many imageries when reading Antigone. An example would be when Antigone said; “She wailed out loud that sharp sound of bitterness a bird makes when she looks in her nest and it’s empty, it’s a widow’s bed in the baby chicks are gone” (515-518) Sophocles uses a metaphor and imagery to compare Antigone to a bird as well as to emphasize Antigone’s devotion to her brother.

Reading Antigone helped me think about things in a different way. Life finding the struggle of balance between being strong alone and being strong in a crowd. Both Antigone and Creon stand alone, but their intentions are different. Antigone has a strong grasp on her morals and is able to do what is right even when no one supports her. The theme of this story is Fate and Free will and to see Antigone’s bravery and courage to do what she truly believed in was right. Antigone symbolizes her free will of doing what is right even if it may cost her life. Antigone’s courageous acts raises one question. Why are we scared of death?

I really did love this book, and I especially loved Antigone’s character, her sheer boldness and unwavering confidence are traits that make her so easily likeable and even admirable. For a woman of her time to stand up to man of Creon’s status and fight for her right to bury her brother and honour her family name is truly inspiring. Comparing the story of Antigone to that of Oedipus, I found that I preferred Antigone far more. I found it much more exciting and empowering than Oedipus, it was also much more relevant, covering concepts such as feminism, misogyny, religion, justice, and morality.

It very clearly explores the topic of femininity and sexism, and compares women’s expected roles in society, and their actual behaviour. The thing that makes Antigone so powerful is her inherent teenage behaviour. From what we can assume, Antigone is probably around 15 or 16, and anything bad that could happen to her, has already happened, so she really has nothing to lose. This sense of youth and almost immaturity is really what makes her such a politically strong character. And especially at that age, she doesn’t see any other options other than essentially dying for her family’s honour and for what she feels is right, since Creon also expects men to take on a dominant role in society, and women to take more of a submissive role. With this in mind, I strongly believe that had the offender rather been a man that Antigone, he would not have been sentenced to death.

Another major theme in Antigone that I found quite interesting was that of morality. Was Antigone right in defying Creon and burying her brother, even if he betrayed the citizens of Thebes? Or should she have listened to Ismene and let Creon leave his body to decompose? It is also a matter of fate and free choice. While free choice plays a major part in the story, such as her decision to give Polynices a proper burial. However, fate plays an even bigger role. Antigone was not limited by her fate, but rather the knowledge of it.

And finally, Antigone also covers the topic of divine law, meaning law of the gods, and law of man and state. Due to religion being such a prominent part in our main characters lives, religious rules and traditions were promoted to a law status, meaning everyone must follow them. One of these laws stated that all citizens require a proper burial. Creon obviously defies said law which results in our major conflict between Antigone and Creon over each individuals standards of divine law. The only time these two argue over divine law is when it serves their best interests and benefits them.

We are introduced to the play with Antigone (Oedipus daughter) who is this brave,  fearless but overall self motivated to give his brother a dignified burial. Then on the other part its Ismene her sister. Ismene on the other side is way more not rebel and she knows how to adapt to things or accept things that she doesn’t like. They both had already lost a lot of family members.

This makes Ismene think more about how things can end up for them and she doesn’t really care much on giving her brother a dignified burial. In this part I am on Antigones side because I think that it is a good thing that she wants to honor her brother because at the end both brothers have the same fault. That’s something that Antigone understands really well and that’s why she insists that much. One of the things that i enjoyed a lot of this play was the way that character start to care about their family and this is visible when Creon asks the two sisters (Antigone and Ismene) if they both participated on their brothers burial, Ismene tries to protect her sister Antigone by blaming herself. And also with Creon’s wife and son this is very visible.

I really liked how the story had this plot switch at the end where not just Ismene ends up loosing (by Antigone hanging herself) but Creon is the most affected with this. Creon’s son and wife end up dead as also her nephew. So I think that this play ends up showing us how this people didn’t learn from their ancestors. The end is really shocking because you would never expect this much suicide and death. I thought this was going to end up well but then it just turned out worst than I could imagine.

I consider that Antigone was a very interesting story which I quite enjoyed reading, it is a story that has many events in history that make you want to continue reading it and personally I liked this story more than Odipus.

Antigone is a character that I find quite interesting and quite brave since despite what the others told her, she did what she thought was correct, I think that several of the decisions that Antigone made made the story have a more interesting plot.

 

Like I said before, this type of book, aren’t the kind of book I’m used to read, but like the other one, this book surprised me, because I ended up liking it. The story generated different emotions in me, it is a story full of deaths, feelings of loss and sadness, machismo, drama, beliefs, and debate about what is right and wrong, this stuff caused me emotions such as surprise, fear, intrigue, sadness, anger, etc.

I like Antigone’s mentality, so strong, so dedicated, and focused, the way she is loyal to her gods, and the way she fulfills their wishes even if it means risking herself. She died defending her goal, which only shows how faithful she was to herself and her ideals. Let’s talk about Creon, he had so much wrong ideas in my opinion, but I understand that possibly all those “macho” thoughts were so normalized at that time that for him and everyone else they were expected and went unnoticed. I’m amazed at how similar Oedipus and Creon’s mentalities are, they make very similar mistakes and both end up very badly because of it.

I think the most robust theme of this book is “death” as the book goes by, most of the main characters die, leaving a lot of pain to their family and in the end, only Ismene and Creon remain.

I really liked how the story deals with such delicate topics and although they are stories from the past, the teachings that this book left me with, without a doubt, I can apply in the present

 

We are introduced to the play with the brave and fearless Antigone, Oedipus’ daughter. We are able to contrast these traits back and forth in this play, as we see how she turns Creon’s world upside down as soon as the story begins. Why would she do such a thing? Why would she rebel against the higher authority? Why does she not care about the consequences? These questions have a simple answer, yet to understand them is what is considered to be complicated: her beliefs. Antigone believed that her brother Polynices deserved to be buried with dignity and honor, such as any other citizen had the right to, no matter what questionable things they did while they were alive.

Antigone is a wild spirit. She does not care if her sister Ismene disagrees with her actions, she does not care if Creon tries to kill her, she does not care if she is exposed to the whole kingdom of Thebes. She, deep down, knows that if people were not scared to speak up due to Creon’s power, they would side with her.  Haemon’s support for Antigone is the evidence for this inference, and he believes in her so strongly he ends up dying for her. These two were the original tragic lovers, the ones we see later on in Shakespeare’s play “Romeo and Juliet”.

Death, death, and more death. That is one of the main topics that this play made emphasis on. Antigone shows certain signs early on in the play that she does not want to live. She has no motivation to fight for her life, and, in fact, is looking for a reason to go to the world of the dead. She openly talks about this with Creon, when she is accused of committing the crime of burying her own brother.

Speaking of Creon, I believe he is an intriguing character. Sophocles tries humanizing Creon over and over again, making us empathize with the hardships he has gone through in the span of his life. Almost at the end of the play, we can see the contrast between him and Oedipus; what makes them different. Creon does listen to Terisias, although he did it too late, and the consequence of his pride was the loss of his wife, son, and niece. I was not that fond of Creon due to the way he talked about women, saying they were weak and did not deserve to be in a power position. My opinion slightly changed after I read everything Creon had lost because of his ignorance, I empathized deeply with him, as I felt that he did not deserve to go through that much grief, he is a human after all.

Antigone is an ancient story that is extremely valuable to the actual world and society because it mirrors the issues we are currently facing. Sexism and abuse of power are relevant topics to this day. Men still feel uncomfortable around outspoken women and try to silence them. Powerful politicians weaponize fear against their citizens to keep them in control and with their mouths shut. On the other hand, philosophically speaking, there is this ongoing debate on free will. I remember in class we talked about how our brain controls us sometimes; how chemicals in our brain affect our actions and reactions; how, even if they do control us, we need to be held accountable for them. If I were to read the story again, I know I would find even more things to dissect and reflect upon. This play is truly a masterpiece we should never forget and always go back to once in a while.

This book is filled with despair, loss and agony. Comparing it to Oedipus the King, I didn’t find that play as emotional as this one. Antigone manages to bring up many important subjects that are still relevant.  Like feminism; and how the chase for money may blind you. I like to note how valid these things are today.

Despite the fact that this play was a bit hard to read due to the rich language and a few confusing analogies, I enjoyed it. It was interesting to see Creon in such a miserable state at the end. This was one of those characters that I found unpleasant from the start, and seeing his character unwrap one page at a time was quite great.

Creon is left to suffer the rest of his life alone, mourning at his family’s tombs. Ismene lives as well, but the memories of her sister and her family-tree will remain with her. The best thing she can do is learn to cope with these things and live a happy life. No matter how horrible your past is, you can always choose to start living your best today.

 

Honestly, I found the story of Antigone as good as Oedipus, but the drama and tragedy in Antigone’s story is much more intriguing  and strong for me. It is full of loss and tragedies, as well as metaphors or situations that can be identified with events from the present. I feel a little of pity for Creon and Ismene as they were the ‘last ones left’ and were there to presence how everyone of their families died.

I also like how in the story is portrayed the determination on fighting for what you believe for, but it is important to recognize that what you think is right it isn’t always that way. A very clear example is Creon’s beliefs, he is evidently a very sexist man who had a made clear his favoritism toward his gender, which is why I could not respect Creon completely, although he was trying to do the best for his kingdom he did it in wrong ways and he realized things too late for him to be able to stop it.

I believe myself to be a combination of Antigone and Ismene, since I can be a really nice and quiet person like Ismene, but if there is something I believe in and I see a clear injustice on things I will fight for it.

 

Personally I thought that the story of Antigone was pretty dramatic, because of all the things that were occurring, and that’s what made the story of Antigone interesting to me, because it had a drastic ending, since at the end most of the characters were dead. I have to say that I felt empathy for Creon because he was the one who stayed alive carrying with the pain of his family members being dead.

Something that I liked a lot about this story, is that it seems more realistic that Oedipus the King, because they mention things in Antigone’s story that makes it look more realistic than Oedipus, but it is interesting how both of the stories are connected, and complementing each other, and I have to say I didn’t expected Antigone’s part to be so drastic.

The most interesting part for me was when Creon and Haemon start discussing about their different ideas, we can clearly see how they have a different position in what they believe in which makes it very interesting for me to read since I can see two different point of views, the one I agree more with is Haemon ideas because he is not only thinking about himself and how if a girl is defying the rules that would put them on a difficult position, instead he is asking his father to be able to see the world different which could improve his kingdom.

At the end of this play I did empathize for Creon although at the begin I was not the best fan of him, but after all he lost it made me realize how someone in a position of power can quickly loose it. People with a lot to loose can go down really quickly if they are not careful and I believe myself to be someone who could loose a lot too, which makes me understand Creon in a way, and not see him as badly as others may.

 

In the story of Antigone we can truly see how things worked in the past, and how men normally would approach women. In this work I admire Antigone since I consider she was defying the laws correctly and with a purpose, even the citizens recognize that she was right, it even got to the point were Haemon supported the decisions she had made and told his father what he consider he needed to hear.

Before reading this I did not had a made up opinion about Creon, but now that we get to know him more I can say that he would be a person of my disliking due to his clear disgust against women, it is clear that he is a misogynist who has a lot of favoritism towards his gender, things that men do he considers that it is wrong for women to do it. Haemon even tell his own father how he should be more open minded otherwise he would be an empty king. Several people have told Creon that the people of his kingdom are only on his side because of their fear of him, and not because they support his ideas and the way he rules.

Now that I have think through this story I can sympathize with Ismene since I can understand her position of fear and how she did not wanted to challenge Creon because there was no certainty of what he would do to her although she is part of his blood.

In my opinion I believe Creon got what he deserved although a lot happened to him I believe it was necessary since sometimes something big has to happen to people so that they can understand that they are wrong, sometimes their mind does not allow them to see beyond their arrogance.

What happens in this story is truly how men used to treat women, and how they thought of them being less, which makes me thankful about how through time people have become more open minded like Haemon. I am grateful for people like Antigone who can sacrifice their lives for what they think is right, these types of people are the one who help us progress as a society. If we all had a closed mind like Creon’s it would be very difficult for us to evolve, but everything that happened to Creon in this story made me believe that the world has a way of making us learn from ourselves helping us mentally grow, although it can be cruel it is also illuminating for us too, as the experiences we live open new views of the world for us that help us see thing differently and act in a way that is more appropriate, treating everyone with the same respect they deserve regardless of their gender.

I enjoyed Antigone a lot, and same as last time, I’d say more than I expected. It had the same mysterious effect that Oedipus had but apart from that, it was a very different story from the it for me at least because of the way that Antigone is fundamentally more realistic than Oedipus The King. It’s realism is mainly due to the characters’ normal disposition and the whole idea being more plausible.

Immediately when I think of the way characters are shown in Antigone I think of how were constantly reminded that Creon is human, a great example is on page 116 when after hearing the prophet and sending him away telling him he’s wrong, he realizes the wrongs he’s done and struggles to figure out how to go about it. This really contrasts from the laughably unrealistic story of Oedipus. We also see Antigone, who is like her father with her hastiness and outspokenness but at the same time her reasonings for saying and doing things are all realistically justified. For example, her unstoppable want for her brothers body to be buried is understandable to an extent since Greek culture believes and values the gods so much. making the idea of defying them sound like maybe not the best idea. And then finally Ismene and Haemon. They both have pretty normal personalities. Ismene, not wanting to anger the king and get killed tries to just stay quiet and live her life, and Haemon, sympathizing with the one he loves. Both ideas are understandable and relatable to people thousands of years later.

As well as these characters, the story in which they’re set in has greatly calmed down and cleared up for Antigone. In Oedipus your sat there often thinking what why or how because of the constant crazy events that kept occurring. Entertaining, but not that realistic. Whereas the premise of Antigone is not only more clear but also generally more likely that it could actually happen. From the brothers fighting over the thrown, to Ismene and Antigone’s worries about whether the kings or the gods rule is more important, they all resemble realistic issues. Who should be in power has been a question from before the Greek times until now, and who or what to believe is another good question that everyone asks themselves at some point.

The questions this book raises had me thinking in a very modern way which I found super interesting. People had this thought from Oedipus The King but I personally didn’t all that much since I was so overwhelmed with all the unrealistic questions like why marry your mother, how did Oedipus become king so incredibly easily and what in the world is a sphynx.

The story of Antigone was filled with a lot of death and feelings of loss. Closer to the end of the story almost all of the main characters were dead. I found that the characters were killing themselves because someone else had died and it seemed as though it started a cycle of death caused by a previous death. I know personally I have experienced family members and loved ones dying. My whole family was sad and hurt, not to the point of killing themselves, but it is hard to lose someone and I feel bad for Creon. He stays alive, but all of his family has died, other than Ismene who will also live with the despair of all her family being dead.

Antigone was an interesting character. In the story she is very strong minded and will do anything to follow the law of the gods, even if it meant risking her own life. In the book she was engaged to her cousin Haemon and it seems as though they must’ve loved each other, because when Haemon finds Antigone dead he also kills himself. Antigone fell fighting for what she believed in. She only wanted her brother to have a proper burial and instead more people died. Creon had a difficult situation in the story, he has very strong morals that he wishes to keep, and doesn’t want to make exceptions for family. If he had buried Polynices when he died along with Eteocles, he wouldn’t have lost so much of his family. Creon makes many of the same mistakes that Oedipus did in his story. Even when it came to Tiresias’ warnings both Oedipus and Creon didn’t pay any attention, and both paid the price. I think it is safe to say that if approached by a profit named Tiresias, you should believe them it may spare a lot of pain.

I didn’t like the book, but not because the story isn’t good, it’s just not a book I would read. The story is good but the truth is that I had a hard time reading the book at first because it was a little confusing, but as I read on I started to find it less and less difficult to read.

I liked the story because at first I thought that Oedipus was the bad guy in the story, but he really wasn’t, in the story there was no one bad, it was just a poorly told story and that made some people think that he was bad, I liked that because, that happens a lot and many times we are the bad guys in a poorly told story. I didn’t think I would like the story, but I liked the message it left.

 

Oedipus the King was an eventful story. Full of twists and turns that left me engaged and puzzled. This tragedy was as tragic as a play can get, with the main character marrying his mother and killing his father. Every second of the book was eventful with either arguments or injuries’ and in some cases, death. There were several main reasons I enjoyed this text for one the way it is written, as a play, and for another dramatic irony and emotional writing that is found on every single page.

Naturally, this was not the first time I had come across the unfortunate story of Oedipus. I had stumbled over it many years ago when I visited Greece, it was a popular bed time story. However this was the first time I had read Sophocles and the play titled Oedipus the King. My first thought when I opened the book was: it’s a play? I had never imagined that the story I read as a child was in fact a Greek play, but let me say this, I am so glad that it was. Without all the “extra” words on the page, the plot and characters were far easier to follow, the arguments felt more real and most importantly it kept you wanting to read the next line, then the next one and the one after that.

Oedipus:                                                                                                        You think you can keep this up and never suffer?

Tiresias:                                                                                                          Indeed, if the truth has any power.

Oedipus:                                                                                                        It does but not for you, old man. You’ve lost your power, stone blind, stone-deaf senses, eyes blind as stone! (l. 420-423)

These few lines illustrate the moreish effect of a play. You want to read the next line. You want to know what Tiresias said next. On top of that there is also a certain freedom when reading a play, your mind can wonder, allowing you to picture the scenes in your head without the author attempting to describe them for you. I struggle to read books, I find it a long and argues task. That however, was not the case for a Sophocles play.

I also enjoyed the emotional writing, dramatic irony and the beautiful poetry, woven throughout the story. Where you least expected it one of the characters would burst out in a big speech, always in well written lines of poetry. These speeches, to me, added an emotional value to the play. One line in particular spoken by Tiresias to Oedipus, “Blind who now has eyes” (l. 516). These five words carry the answer to everything, these five words have such value in the play. As we know Oedipus is blind, not physically but metaphorically, as he can not see what is literally right in front of him. In other words he can not see himself. He is the murder. Tiresias also goes as far as to say “now”, blind who “now” has eyes, foreshadowing and predicting what is to come. Dramatic irony added some comedy to a tragedy and can be seen on almost every page. It is this irony that made me love the play even more. It gets the reader thinking, how could he possible say that? For example “Now my curse on the murder…let that man drag out his life in agony” (l. 280-284). Oedipus places a curse on himself, yet he does not yet know what he has done. Everyone in the audience would be laughing or incredulous at this little speech because they all know how dumb the protagonist looks. But maybe it is exactly this to which people relate? In the end I view Oedipus as a hero, a hero who happened to have an unlucky fate, whos life was out of his hands, and who did nothing wrong but pursue an unfortunate truth. I greatly enjoyed Oedipus the King and look forward to reading more of Sophocles’ works in the future.

 

Oedipus the King was the first Greek play I’ve ever read and there was a lot to get through. It felt quite long probably because the chorus went on for ages every time Oedipus shut up for a second. I had to learn about a lot of cultural stuff too since a lot of the Greek references were foreign to me. But despite the gibberish lost in bad translation and my limited knowledge of older English, I really enjoyed Oedipus the King. I enjoyed it because of the funny banter and the big dramatic images it drew in my mind.

The parts that made me most engaged while reading the play was definitely when Oedipus argued with the prophet or Creon. First off I found the language much easier. There was less poetic nonsense and more straight up yelling, which happens to be more understandable in this situation. It was also not as daunting to read small sections of text rather than a big block, and the content was usually more descriptive as well, unlike the chorus or Oedipus’s speeches which would question a lot of who’s what’s where’s why’s and how’s of every situation.

When I wasn’t engaged through what I read directly, but through how what I had read made me feel or think of. I wrote an essay on emotion directly and indirectly through Poetry last year and I think this story is a perfect example of the indirect way we can feel emotion from the writing. Although we don’t relate with the text directly since killing fathers and marrying mothers isn’t the most familiar topic, a lot of the emotion we get from the story comes from the compelling ideas of mystery and tragedy. Key moments in the book that relate to this are when Oedipus meets the Sphynx, when he tries to figure out who the murderer is and when he finds out its him. All of these awesome scenarios really paint a picture of a great story in my mind.

I really enjoyed the play for the smile it put on my face at the pointless arguing of two old Greek guys and the want to keep reading when something crazy happened. I’m definitely anticipating the next play.

The story of Oedipus the King was a fairly short story which draws you in the few first pages. I enjoyed viewing the rich language and seeing the style of speech that was presented, it all seemed to have a twist and turn. I also noticed a lot of irony throughout the book and double meanings which can be interpreted very differently depending on what intent you put into the phrase.

There is no “bad guy” in this story. There is just the outcome of the situation; the consequence(s). We are only humans, but humans aren’t perfect. Everybody makes mistakes, and it touches me because none of this is really his fault. He admits all his errors, and I believe that this is what’s important, the hardest part is to admit. But he also knows there is no way he can fix this mess now. So he makes yet another hard decision, he wants to be gone; not dead, but gone far away from his children and people, where no man can see him, he wants to suffer the rest of his life to atone for all his sins. 

As you get to the end of the book, you can feel the agony of Oedipus through the pages as he mourns for the things he has done. It is what life/ gods have prepared for him. It definitely impacted the way I view the concept of “destiny”in this book. 

 

Oedipus was not a book I expected to enjoy. There, I said it. Shocking, isn’t it? A 16-year-old in the 21st century did not think that they’d be moved by some tragedy written sometime in Ancient Greece. At most, I thought I’d enjoy hearing references to the Greek Gods. Now here I am, surprisingly moved by the writing and the humor presented in Oedipus.

As I said before in class, the humor of Oedipus was quite entertaining. I found myself laughing at many parts of the text, which I certainly did not anticipate from a tragedy. One of the many jokes that I appreciated was following Oedipus ranting about how Creon was going to attempt to overthrow him, and Creon responded with a simple, “Are you quite finished?” (pg. 189). Such a hilarious set of dialogue that is still enjoyed in our modern day. Before this, Oedipus proclaims,

Now my curse on the murderer. Whoever he is, a lone man unknown in his crime or one among many, let that man drag out his life in agony, step by painful step– I curse myself as well . . . if by any chance he proves to be an intimate of our house, here at my hearth, with my full knowledge, may the curse I just called down on him strike me! (pg. 172)

This excerpt of pure irony makes us as readers completely facepalm, as with the knowledge we have, we understand the ideocracy of this curse Oedipus puts upon the murderer of Laius, which is himself. Both examples of the humor within what we know as a Ancient Greek tragedy certainly caught me off guard yet amused me.

Another aspect of Oedipus that was very pleasing was the emotional writing. Charged lines within this play whether you are or aren’t expecting them hit you quite hard, no matter what. These lines of dialogue truly remind you that this is a tragedy, lines like,

Apollo, friends, Apollo– he ordained my agonies– these, my pains on pains! But the hand that struck my eyes was mine, mine alone– no one else– I did it all myself! What good were eyes to me? Nothing I could see could bring me joy. (pg. 241)

These few lines truly show the weight of living Oedipus’ life to me, his true intentions and feelings towards what’s happened to him. Here, we can see the trauma he’s endured truly showing through. It is lines like theses that really help immerse me into a book and make me enjoy the material I’m reading.

Overall, this book has caused the impression I’ve had of other ancient Greek tragedies to become less intimidating. Whereas before, the thought of reading them almost frightened me, now I feel as thought I could read through another book of similar type of Oedipus without worry, but instead excitement.

Oedipus the King was a play written by Sophocles for the Dionysus festival that was held in Athens in Ancient Greek.  This play took me in for a ride, and surprised me with a sensation of misery mixed with tiny bits of irony and interesting plot twists. In this play, I learned a lot by just looking at the lines, vocabulary, and how sometimes Sophocles personified certain things to make emphasis in them (such as time), it added more detail to the story, something that is to my liking.

Before we started reading this play, we learned the story of Oedipus and his tragedy in a summarized way. Oedipus was crowned King of Thebes after defeating the Sphinx, but what he did not know is that on that same path he had killed his own father (Laius, the past king), and later on married his mother when he ruled over Thebes. The most ironic part of the story is that Oedipus has no idea that he is the culprit of such acts, and so he carries on with the investigation until the end, when he finds out he’s the guilty/corrupted one. Traumatized, alarmed, and perturbed, he gouges his eyes out and is exiled from his own kingdom, living in misery for the rest of his life.

I had heard of this story before, and I was quite curious to see in more depth the story and what was Oedipus’ character throughout it. Before reading the play, I thought Oedipus was as innocent as a young infant. But, once the plot kept going, it became noticeable that Oedipus was an overly confident man, and that at some point, it got combined with arrogance. Although he had his flaws, like every other person does, he was overall a good person that tried to do the right thing for his own people. Something else that I observed is that he was brave and ambitious. The will to find the killer of Laius was something that Oedipus did not lack, no matter the consequences of the truth that were to come after.

The story can be approached in different ways, but the one that has caught my eye so far, is the philosophical one. Do we have free will? Are prophecies true? If so, to what extent? Who created the prophecies in the first place? Or, are they just there because that’s how the world works? These questions have been raised ever since I finished the story, and are questions I cannot find the right answers to. In my opinion, it is compelling how a play written so many years ago has relevancy in the now. I love stories that get me into a rabbit hole, and this is why Oedipus the King has been one of my favorite stories so far.

        Oedipus the King by Sophocles, was the first class novel we read. When I started reading it I was very confused about what was happening but by the second section of reading it started to make a lot more sense and it became more clear. It was also hard for me because there were many new words that I did not fully understand at first and I found it hard to understand parts of the old fashioned writing. I have never read a long play like this and it was very different but fun to read. I enjoyed reading this for many reasons but one of the main ones is that I learned about a new style of writing. My thoughts at the beginning were that it seemed like a very boring book and that I would not enjoy it but I realized near the end that it turned out to be a play that I enjoyed reading. While the story progressed we found out that the protagonist is Oedipus. I noticed that Oedipus’ personality changed multiple times throughout the course of the story and it was fun to follow along with those changes.

        Oedipus’ character had many parts to it but I also found it a bit confusing at some points. The story got me thinking about how much the world can change so much because tons of years ago when Oedipus was written, it was known for books and plays to be written in this type of English but now we refer to it as old english. Something I noticed was that Oedipus didn’t really admit when he was wrong and he mostly blamed others for his own mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes and that is just part of learning but if you always blame other people you will never learn how to admit when you’re wrong. There have been times in my life where it feels like too much to deal with and my brain automatically thinks it will go away if iI blame someone else but then I realized that it only makes it worse.

        This book was overall a very fascinating and challenging book in a good way. In the future I think it would be really cool to read more plays because I learned a lot from Oedipus. I learned many new words that I have never heard of before reading the story. Oedipus taught me many important skills such as how to read and understand old english but it also opened up more vocabulary.

Before reading this book, I had previously read an adaptation of it, called “The Gods Are Not to Blame” by Ola Rotimi, and despite knowing the events that took place I still enjoyed reading the Greek version of the story. The main difference between the two books were names and cultural differences (example; names of gods, names of cutlery, geography). Although, I will say that the Greek version was more violent and brass, this of course includes the violent nature of the people in the story and the normality of bloodshed in their daily lives.

I liked all the characters and especially loved their dynamics. My favorite duo would be Oedipus and Jocasta because even though they’re in a romantic relationship, you still catch small whiffs of Jocasta’s motherly love seeping out onto Oedipus, which I feel adds to the irony of the story. “What, Oedipus? What haunts you so?” (pg, 202) Although this quote can be said to be mainly out of respect and her duty as a queen to her king, I interpreted it as both motherly and respectful. My favorite character is easily Tiresias for simple reasons, he solved the mystery in an instant (technically) and is the wisest character. We see that a few pages after Tiresias have been introduced, he tells Oedipus who the perpetrator is, and I feel that the fact that he prophesized exactly what was going to happen to Oedipus while reading him like a picture was most impressive.” You mock my blindness? Let me tell you this. You with your precious eyes, you’re blind to the corruption of your life, to the house you live in, those you live with- who are your parents…”(pg, 183)

I found the structure of the story/play interesting and enjoyable. The dialogue varied from short one to two sentence responses to over a page long rant. The imagery used were quite good too, much easier to understand compared to a traditional poem. “Soon, soon you’ll scream aloud- what haven won’t reverberate? What rock of Cithaeron won’t scream back in echo?” Lastly, the language that was used. The language used were modern and we still make use of most of these words till date. This was probably a big factor in the comprehension of the multiple use of imagery and the overall plot and dialogue. Although, the way some words were used were different from the way most people would expect them to be used in a sentence. ” I will never shrink from the anger in your eyes”(pg,185). In a modern way of restating that statement it would be, I would never retreat (or back down) from the anger in your eyes.

Oedipus the King written by Sophocles, our first assigned novel for the year. After reading a “summary” of the play, we began reading on page 159. Our first reading assignment was up to page 198. I found myself confused during the first half but quickly catch on during the second half where it was basically two grown man arguing. As for reading assignments were given, I found myself gaining interest towards the play and began enjoying it. As the story develops, we follow the protagonist, Oedipus reveals more about himself in a hilarious fashion through the many ironic situations. I believe this development is the cause of why I found myself enjoy the play and even participated plentifully in class discussions (possibly more then the entirety of MYP 5.)

When we first read the “summary,” I was drawn into the fact that Oedipus killed his father and married his mother and gave birth to many children. However, when we began reading the play, my view on Oedipus regressed. When Oedipus came to Thebes and crowned king of the fight with the sphinx, Oedipus went on, to find the truth behind the killing of Laius, the former king of Thebes. After receiving no luck when giving out the order of finding the culprit, Oedipus summoned Tiresias (a blind prophet), who was believe to “share the eyes” of Apollo (pp. 174-175). After Tiresias is summoned, Oedipus began questioning the blind prophet. However, even after exclaiming “if any one of you know the murderer / Nothing to fear, even if he must denounce himself / he will suffer no unbearable punishment” (p. 171), Tiresias refuses to give the answer. Oedipus continues to pressure Tiresias in giving him a answer for the next 15ish pages despite Tiresias being “equal in a sense.” Although I understand and admire Oedipus’s determination to find the truth, he went to far as Tiresias proclaimed that he is refusing for his own good. After finally making Tiresias speak, he himself was not pleased with the answer and lashes out on Tiresias. However, after sending Tiresias off, Creon came in and talk some sense into Oedipus. Only then do I start finding the charms of Oedipus as the protagonist of a fictional play.

As Oedipus begins learning the truth behind the killing of Laius, his reaction to the irony placed upon him is beautiful. Watching Oedipus slowly descend into madness as he discovers more information then he wanted, was beautiful and made me enjoy reading the play. Oedipus first curses himself by proclaiming “Whoever he is / let that man drag out his life in agony / by any chance he proves to be an intimate of our house / may the curse I just called down on him strike me!” (pp. 172). As he continues to learn more about the killing of Laius and his connection to the former royal family of Thebes, he became insane and “cursed” the gods (Apollo). In spite, Oedipus pulled out his eyes and proclaimed it was his doing. After going insane and proclaiming his sins and the curses he laid upon himself, Oedipus became calm. He yearned for his children before his leave and prayed to the god. This made Oedipus a man who you just can’t really hate as many of the things he has done were purely his fate. However, you can’t help but laugh at Oedipus as well.

Oedipus the king written by Sophocales was an enjoyable read for me. Reading the story always had me excited for the next scene. I liked reading Oedipus the king mainly because of Oedipus the main characters personality development, and how it changed over the story. When the truth is being revealed Oedipus makes it his responsibility to keep on looking for the truth, and I really admire this respectable act of his. I also disliked Jocasta as she was the one to give off her son to die. Another thing which I found a bit difficult to understand was the old-fashioned language.

At the beginning of the story, I did not like Oedipus because of his bad temper and how hubris he was. When Oedipus comes across Laius at the narrow bridge his self-confidence from his egotistical ambitions kicks in, he kills Laius and his people over Laius telling him to get out the way. At this point of the story, I strongly disliked Oedipus as he killed for no reason and how he did not think before committing this act. This act made him unlikeable for me as I saw him to be a very cocky king that thought of himself so highly. When the King of Thebes Oedipus, comes to Corinth, he is praised to be king and marry the Queen Jocasta who is Oedipus’s mother. Later in the story, the truth slowly starts to come to light from the Soothsayer and Oedipus completely denies the accusation of him killing his father. Although, this was also something I disliked about Oedipus as he did not even think about the possibilities, we later discover that Oedipus is determined to find out the truth especially when everything is pointed at him. This changes the way I look at Oedipus, I respect him and admire him so much after his bravery and loyalty to being The King of Thebes of finding out the truth, when he easily could have ignored it. I sympathize for how Oedipus was the puppet of the Gods and how the prophecy ruled his life. However, I commend how Oedipus stabbed his eyes out for control over his own life and to end being the puppet to the Gods. I also disliked Jocasta as she tried hiding the truth.

During the story I did not think much of Jocasta as she did not have any qualities I disliked. However, when the truth is slowly coming to light instead of being loyal to her position of the Queen, she tries brushing off the accusations as she does not want to truth to be revealed. Her motive on trying to avoid grief when the identity of Oedipus is coming to light is something I do not admire. Jocasta was a character I did not like because she tried to alter the fate but then she also denies it at various points. Jocasta is selfish to me because she tried to change her fate multiple times to protect her reputation. Jocasta’s motive was to make herself prosper and successful as a noble queen. All things considered, she did not want anything interfering with her reputation and she attempts to repute Tiresias’s allegation. She tried stopping Oedipus from seeking the truth when she realized the prophecy came true. I also found the Ancient Greek old-fashioned language a bit difficult, especially when reading the chorus.

The old-fashioned language was something that was a bit difficult to follow. Certain times of reading the play I was lost and had no clue on what was being said.  There are also a few instances of rhyme, appearing only in the beginning and final scenes, and usually only by Oedipus and the chorus.

I find the story very interesting because you can really see how different people were and people think in that time. For example they strongly believed in their religion and prophecies that people were able to gave away their son’s because of a prophecy. On this days very few people or no one would be able to do that. I would even say that people used to be very dumb or their thoughts were very affected by their religious believes. Or would even rip their eyes off just so people didn’t think that the god’s had the control over him.

I really liked the character of Oedipus because he is like this very decided and straight forward character,  even when he was about to find out that he had married her mother and killed his father he was decided to find the truth. Because for example Jocasta didn’t wanted him find the truth but Oedipus wouldn’t listen to her because he was very decided. After all that he did (killed his father and married his mother) he thought he needed to punish himself and he ripped his eyes off  so this probes  how strong his will was.

I felt really disappointed on the way that Jocasta story ends like she hang herself and leaves Oedipus which was his son/husband/father of his children alone with all the guilt that he felt, so I think that was a very selfish decision and even though she was suffering too I really hated how her story end.  I really did not like Jocasta character because she was very dumb. Like if she knew about the prophecy why did she just married the first random guy that come up and that was also way smaller than her, small enough to be her son.

The story of Oedipus holds the idea that a person, believed to be good, could have terrible things happen to them. I find the story interesting and relatable, in the sense that some events seem to have a greater power to be controlling our decisions. Weather it be a god or fate, some decisions seem to be out of our hands. When Oedipus realizes what he had done, he feels angry at Apollo and disappointed in himself. He blames Apollo for everything except his own choice to stab his eyes out. I would assume that Oedipus feels guilty and doesn’t want to take full responsibility. But since Apollo is the god of prophecy and it had been foreseen that Oedipus would kill his father and marry his mother,  he was okay with blaming Apollo. He gouged his eyes out because he couldn’t bare to live without consequence, possibly deep down he did believe he held part of the blame.

Oedipus, unknowingly made many mistakes, he didn’t realize that he was causing problems for himself. Oedipus’ behavior, connects with the reader by telling them, that even if you have the best intentions you may be on the path to a darker future. The author understands the connection between character and reader, so he makes Oedipus as relatable as possible. Jocasta nd Oedipus have an interesting relationship in the story. For the time the story was written, I would expect Oedipus to disregard Jocasta, but instead he holds respect for her. Oedipus seems to care about what Jocasta has to say, he confides in her and listens to her suggestions, until it has to do with learning about his past.

At the end of the story, before Oedipus is Exiled. Creon shows Oedipus mercy and lets him say goodbye to his daughters. His daughters only hesitated at the sight of him for a moment, before trusting their father. After Oedipus hugs his daughters, Creon seems to regret his decision of mercy and sends Oedipus’ daughters back into the palace. At that moment it seems as though Creon had been expecting The two girls to be scared of Oedipus and not want to see him, but when they ignored his appearance he got angry and sent them away. It seems as though Creon was still holding a grudge against Oedipus for blaming him for Tiresias’ words.

The story of Oedipus shows us how strong fate is, and even with all the attempts to trick fate, what was said in a prophecy will come true. Even though we feel bad for Oedipus’ fate it had been foreseen and there was nothing anybody could do to stop it.

Oedipus personally seemed to me to be a fairly complete and interesting story which I really enjoyed reading, it was a bit complicated for me since it is an unusual English so there were words that I did not understand very well. However, this helped me to expand my knowledge and vocabulary.

Oedipus turned out to be quite an interesting story for me since it made me persevere and see many things differently, the book makes you see the world from another perspective, one in which everything depends on what is happening as time passes and the things are not always the same. Really this is a story that once you start makes you want to continue reading to know what will happen at the end.

Talking a little more about the main character. I feel that in the story oedipus made many mistakes but I don’t feel that he is a bad character because all the actions he did were for a reason and to help his people, however I consider that many times several of these actions went quite far so he could make it look like he had bad intentions. Despite all that, the character seems to me to be a fairly complete character and without a doubt makes this a great story.

 

 

When I started this book, my expectations were too low, because of the type of language, the time in which the book is located, and the type of writing, left this book out of what I like to read, I thought this reading would be really tedious, long and boring for me, but as I progressed in the story I found myself interested in the story, in what Oedipus was going through,

Honestly, my first impression about Oedipus was that he was a bad person, I mean how can someone kill so many people? and continue calling himself “a good person”, but little by little I entered the context of the time in which this book is developed. I realized that in these times that was not such a bad thing. Apart from a question that went through my mind did Oedipus really kill all those people by his own decision, or was just Apollo controlling his life?

And now that I have finished the book, I can say that I really liked how the character of Oedipus developed throughout this story, the progress he had as a person, his reactions to the situations that occurred, etc. Also what I like about this book is that it always keeps you in suspense about what will happen, at least I couldn’t predict anything that would happen next, which I normally could in other books.

I can conclude that despite the fact that I did not expect much, it was entertaining for me to read this book, I learned many things from the way it is written, from the words that are used, from the character of Oedipus, from the power of the prophecies or rather How powerful it can be to hear a prophecy about yourself and your future because it can lead you to predispose yourself, which I feel was a lot of what Oedipus did.

Oedipus the king was an interesting story for me since we can imagine a different world with just a few pages. This story made me think about how special is time, think about how time can change our beliefs which can make a whole society shift, things that were seen as normal before will one day be wrong, making you think of what society would you prefer to live in and how does that makes you the person you are.

I’m not used to reading in old english which made reading this a challenge for me, but it made it better knowing that it was a story I could actually enjoy if I understood what was going on. Stories are based on their main characters, so to enjoy a story the main character has to be interesting and Oedipus did not disappoint. In my perspective Oedipus was a great character for the kind of story they gave him. I believe the most respectable thing someone could do is owning up to their mistakes, that is something worth of admiring, and what Oedipus usually did was point the finger at someone else, although he did accept his destiny eventually, he still wanted to kill the man who saved his life, which was confusing since who could blame someone for not killing a child.

In a way I relate to Oedipus, I do try to help others but it is inevitable to make mistakes, and when life has thrown us too much in the face it is much easier to point the finger at someone else, although eventually we accept what has happen as well as the consequences that come along the way, which makes us grow as a person, and try to learn how to take our own decisions, maybe sometimes there not the best decision we could come up to, but at least they are ours, and what defines you is how do you react after something has crossed your path.

Oedipus the King, an Ancient Greek playwright written by Sophocles, is a successful tragedy. The main character in the play, Oedipus, who I feel great sympathy for, has a coarse life in which he has gone through the pinnacle and the most tragic that could have happened to him. First of all, I admire his smartness. He solves the Sphinx’s riddle and saves the citizen of Thebes from her. Nevertheless, it turns out he is the cause of the plague in his city as he is cursed by the gods since he was born. I empathize with Oedipus since he loses everything he had after he finds out about the misery of his life and the reason for the plague, so as everything he does. He loses his mother/wife; he loses his daughters and indeed the city. I can feel the pain of losing all his properties and his love in his life. I respect Oedipus for giving up everything he had to save the city of Thebes. I also commiserate with the Queen, Jocasta, who finds out his husband was killed by his son whom she abandoned years ago. She also finds out that she has slept with her son which is unholy. I understand that she committed suicide afterward since this must be a tragedy for her. I think it is unfair for Oedipus that he does not deserve to be cursed, hated, and treated as a “toy” by all the Gods as he saved the citizens of Thebes.

The plot of Oedipus the King mostly makes sense to me, apart from the chorus part. The Chorus is written from the citizens’ perspective, who do not know what happened to Oedipus. As a reader of the play, I know the plot of the story in advance, before I read the play. Therefore, it was difficult to immerse me into the crowd’s perspective, which requires me to bypass all the advanced knowledge. While I was reading, I was also confused by the formatting of how the play was written. I noticed that some lines are indented. I sometimes skipped those lines unconsciously and accidentally. After Mr. Macknight’s explanation in class, I understood that this play is translated from Greek, also in poem format. Lines were not aligned after translation. Therefore, some lines are indented to match the poem format and lines of the original version.

The main theme of Oedipus the King is fate. Oedipus is cursed since he was born. Although he tries his best to escape the prophet, he fails, kills his father, and marries his mother eventually. The play’s theme is established, “fate guides a person’s life”. However, I personally disagree fate dominates our lives. I believe that we have the authority to be in charge of our lives. After reading, an open-ended question was raised: “What would happen if Oedipus was extremely in charge and mindful of his actions, is the prophet still be accomplished?” The answer is yet to be found.

I found the book “Oedipus the king” really interesting, because it was a bit of a challenge for me to read because of the type of language that it is written, “old english”, so it was fun to read but at the same time difficult for me because of some words that I didn’t understood them as well.

One thing that I liked a lot about the book is the plot twist that it has, and since we didn’t read the first part of the book, that really puts you to think about what happened at the beginning in order for the rest of the story to happen. Another thing that I liked about this book was that Oedipus makes mistakes like we all do, and through out the reading he realized this, and he tried to avoid making another mistake by learning and trying to figure out what his big mistake was.

This story really puts you to think about several things while you are reading it, and the best part about it is that it answers all of your questions, but only if you keep reading it, because then it can get confusing, because it is so unpredictable and all the plot twists that it has, but that is something that makes it this book very entertaining to read.

 

Oedipus the King is a book that found myself to really like, which seems a little weird to me because it isn’t the type of book that I usually read.

I think I liked it because of how the personality of Oedipus is presented. For me, it represents and identifies a lot of characteristics that people (including myself) normally have.

Another thing that I really liked about the book was that every time something happened to Oedipus or around him I became more and more intrigued, and I felt all this questions about the character and the story coming but as I kept reading those questions were being clarified, except two.

Is Oedipus a good person or a bad one and was he really capable to be in charge of his life or was it Apollo controlling it all along? This two questions raises my curiosity  about Oedipus, but I also feel like it’s this really good metaphor about people and our behaviors.

Oedipus the King written by Sophocles was something that I enjoyed reading. I found myself wanting to pick the book up and read past the assigned pages. The reasons for this were the characters and the tone. The main character Oedipus had many layers to his personality which made him more intriguing. The humorous tone of this book was also something that kept me interested. This book also raised a few questions and caused me to reflect.

I found Oedipus’s character to be complicated. This is because he was a tragic hero who was neither totally good nor evil. At the beginning of the book, I did not like Oedipus because I found him to be conceited and have a bad temper. An example of these traits is when Tiresias calls Oedipus the murderer. At this point, Oedipus is very quick to lash out without thinking which makes him unlikeable. As the book progresses, we can see his determination to find out the truth and his loyalty to Thebes. This changed how I viewed Oedipus; I now admired these qualities. The ending to this story had me feeling sorry for Oedipus because of how he felt like a puppet to the Gods. At first, I was confused about why he decided to stab his eyes but then I realized he wanted to have control over his own life. I realize now that portraying Oedipus with both flaws and strengths made Oedipus more transparent. This is because it makes him more human and more relatable instead of a hero with no flaws. Now I wonder if in some way or another we are all similar to Oedipus’s character. Another thing that made me want to continue reading this book was the tone. 

 Although the plot of the play was tragic there was a comical and ironic tone which added to my enjoyment. There were many puns and ironic lines that conveyed this tone such as Oedipus’s line when talking about Laius “I will fight for him as if he were my father.” (p.173). This is ironic because little did, he know Laius was his father. One more line delivered by Oedipus that made me laugh was “I have a terrible fear that the blind seer can see” (p. 203). Passages such as these made the book more entertaining. Another character that is quite humorous is the Messenger. The Messenger delivers many important facts which are crucial to the story but with a comical tone. For example, when the Messenger learns why Oedipus was scared to go back to Corinth he says; “Don’t you know? You’ve really nothing to fear. Polybus was nothing to you, that is why, not in blood” (p. 218). This line is funny because Oedipus has feared going back to Corinth his whole life, but the messenger delivers this news like it is no big deal. Something to consider about the tone of this play is that it was originally performed on a stage with an audience so that is why humour might be a prominent part of the tone. Regardless I appreciated the comical characters and puns throughout the book.  

I found this book interesting and really enjoyable to read, I read it before but I kept learning new stuff while I was reading it again. It has so many plot twists that are imposible to expect combined with the end is what it makes this story the most famous tragedy of the ancient greek.

I really like Oedipus, speaking about the character, the particular reason for this is that you can talk about him over and over again but never come to a complete resolution in the matter of him being a good or a bad guy. He did good things for the people of Thebes but he also killed his father, he did not know that it was his father and the killing part is also completely wrong being seen from a point of view of this era but during that time it wasn’t that strange to hear about somebody killing each another guy only because of a little disagreement. Oedipus is also really short tempered and hotheaded often making assumptions and ending in bad terms with people.

The story in general is completely unpredictable but very well plotted giving everyhting sense as to how and why it is happening, it never goes out of the path making it really easy to understand but it does not makes you feel tired of reading it, this way it makes it a really good way of learning and being entertained for a good amount of time

As I read the book, I realized that Oedipus isn’t a real god. He makes mistakes like humans and I think thats the reason why I like him. I like the book even if it is a bit confusing to read. The whole story with Oedipus and the riddle showed me that the future is inevitable.

I also liked how drastic Oedipus reacts, as he found out that he killed his father and married his mother. The whole book is on one clearly threat. U can barely feel the anger and the emotions from Oedipus.

All the dialogues are a bit confusing and the actions of some characters are a bit strange. My big Question is, why the mother of Oedipus reacting this dramatic, after she found out?. I mean she knew the riddle and didn’t even thought about it as she married him.

if I could change One thing it would be the role/character of the mother. She just doesn’t fit right. in the book. I would change her behavior, her actions and her appear.

But all in one, I think this is a good book with a good story.