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Lesson 2

We will examine the relationships among Creon, Antigone, power, and gender roles. We will closely read Antigone for character details and analysis of their roles and impact in the play.

Lesson Goals

  • Can I make connections to ideas in a video showing a production of Antigone, "‘Antigone’: Creon and Antigone” and Antigone?

  • Can I use text evidence and original commentary to support an interpretive response regarding the conflict between Antigone and Creon?

  • Can I analyze how thematic ideas are developed through characterization and plot in Antigone?

  • Can I analyze how Sophocles develops complex yet believable characters, primarily Creon and Antigone, through cultural settings and events?

Texts

Core

  • Tradebook
    • Antigone, Sophocles (translated by Robert Fagles), Penguin Books, 1984
  • Multimedia
    • Excerpts from “The Story of Antigone: A Play, a Text, a Myth for All Times,” Dr. Evelyne Ender and Dr. David Steiner, Odell Education, 2020
  • Digital Access
    • “‘Antigone’: Creon and Antigone,” National Theatre, National Theatre, 2013

Materials

Tools

Question Sets

Editable Google Docs

Activity 1: Read – Discuss – Listen – Write

We will closely read the exchange between Creon and Antigone to understand the point of view of each of the two main characters.

Step 1

Use a new Character Argument Note-Taking Tool to read and listen as Lines 490-593 are read or performed aloud. As you read and listen, imagine how Creon and Antigone might look as they interact throughout this scene and how they might be moving their bodies. Your teacher will provide guidance on which questions might be used as guidance for your Character Argument Note-Taking Tool and which responses might be added in your Learning Log:

  1. What is Antigone’s claim and supporting evidence of why she broke Creon’s law?

  2. What is Creon’s claim in their exchange and which lines support it?

  3. What counterclaims do Creon and Antigone provide to each other?

  4. Antigone references that the citizens (Chorus) "would all agree, they would praise me too if their lips weren’t locked in fear." How does this description add tension to the scene?

  5. Who is Creon blaming? How does that develop his character? Use text evidence to support your response.

  6. In Lines 590-593, Creon states, “Go down below and love, if love you must - love the dead! While I’m alive, no woman is going to lord it over me." What can you infer about Creon using these lines, and how are these lines related to thematic ideas discussed previously?

  7. Why is Creon right? Why is Antigone right? How are they both wrong? From this short exchange in Lines 590-593, find text evidence to support both sides of the argument.

Step 2

After you complete your thinking and add text evidence for the questions above, return to your Character Argument Note-Taking Tool,and work with a partner to add information about Antigone’s claim and Creon’s counterclaims to her argument. Additionally, watch for points where Creon makes his own claims and where Antigone makes counterclaims against them. Discuss the conclusions you arrived at about the characters’ perspectives and positions in this section of the play. Additionally, discuss which thematic ideas are prominent in the play up to this point. Review the claims, evidence, and counterclaims associated with each thematic idea.

Step 3

You or your partner will portray Creon, the other, Antigone. Read Lines 571-593 aloud. Use inflection and emotion in your reading. Once you have read it aloud, switch roles and reread it aloud. Try new emotions and emphasis on certain words and phrases.

After you have read this exchange, discuss how this small section is pivotal to the rest of the play. Answer the following question:

  1. What could Creon and Antigone do at this point of the play to help explain their perspectives?

Step 4

Write a few sentences on an index card or Google document that summarize this exchange between Creon and Antigone regarding the burial of Polynices. Answer the following questions:

  1. What are the central claims of Antigone and Creon? What is the supporting evidence for each central claim?

  2. What do you predict is going to happen in the rest of the play?

Share your answers with your classmates to find areas of agreement and disagreement. Make sure your Character Argument Note-Taking Tool is complete for both characters from this section; this will support your success on the Culminating Task at the end of the unit.

Activity 2: Discuss – Listen – Read – Write

We will investigate characteristics and details of Creon and Antigone in order to uncover character details and analysis.

Step 1

Reread Lines 490-593 and use the Character Argument Note-Taking Tool. This will provide you with key details later as you think through your Section Diagnostic as well as your Culminating Task.

Step 2

With your partner, do a dramatic performance of this segment and record it on your phone or device. Emphasize certain words and phrases from each of the main characters that show the appeals, claims, and evidence that each is using. What is the other character’s counterclaim? These lines will be textual support on your Culminating Task.

Activity 3: Listen – View – Write

We will view a modern-day adaptation of a key scene with Creon and Antigone while adding to our tools and notes.

Watch the short video, "‘Antigone’: Creon and Antigone" by the National Theatre, to gain information about how a director chose to portray the exchange between Creon and Antigone once she is brought before him. Use the following guiding questions to help you take notes on your Video Note-Taking Tool as you watch:

  1. How does this video add information to the lines you read aloud in class? How does it change the mental images you had as you read and acted out the play?

  2. What do you think about Creon’s and Antigone’s character development after watching this video?

  3. In the interviews with the actors who play the main characters, what insights do they share that help you understand more about the play?

  4. How does the modern adaptation of the scene affect your reading of the classic play?

After you watch the video, share your ideas and thoughts with your peers. Make sure to add to your notes from what other classmates share.

Activity 4: Read – Write

We will read excerpts of a scholarly essay to add information about how Sophocles’s language has been translated in order to compare how subtle differences in language can impact the audience or reader.

Step 1

Read and annotate the Translation section from the Excerpted Handout of "The Story of Antigone: A Play, a Text, a Myth for All Times." Use the guiding questions below to help you understand what the text says and means:

  1. How do the two translations depict the character of Antigone and Creon?

  2. Whose version, Fagles’s or Kitto’s, most resonates with you and why?

  3. Which words do you think best capture the essence of Antigone’s character? Why?

Step 2

Work with a partner and add terms, pictures, definitions, or questions to your Vocabulary Journal from words and phrases found in the essay excerpt.

  • acoustic

  • amphitheater

  • idiom

  • verse

  • prose

  • insolent

  • obstinate (How does this have a different connotative meaning than insolent?)

  • scoundrel (How does this have a different connotative meaning than traitor?)

  • barbaric death (How does this have a different connotative meaning than direst penalty)?

  • direst penalty

  • raving (How does this have a different connotative meaning than hysterical?)

  • hysterical

Talk to your partner and decide which words were supported by words and phrases in context, which words you needed to look up in a dictionary, and which words you made connections to other words.

Discuss the connotative words; which choices made more of an impact on you and how?