Antigone– Characterization
This essay will illustrate the types of characters depicted in Sophocles’ tragic drama, Antigone, whether static or dynamic, flat or round, and whether portrayed through the showing or telling technique.
Martin Heidegger in “The Ode on Man in Sophocles’ Antigone” explains, in a rather involved theory, the destruction of Creon’s character:
The conflict between the overwhelming presence of the essent as a whole and man’s violent being-there creates the possibility of downfall into the issueless and placeless: disaster. But disaster and the possibility of disaster do not occur only at the end, when a single act of power fails, when the violent one makes a false move; no, this disaster is fundamental, it governs and waits in the conflict between violence and the overpowering. Violence against the preponderant power of being must shatter against being, if being rules in its essence, as physics, as emerging power(98).
The dialogue, action and motivation revolve about the characters in the story (Abrams 32-33).
Werner Jaeger in “Sophocles’ Mastery of Character Development” pays the dramatist the very highest compliment with regard to character development:
The ineffaceable impression which Sophocles makes on us today and his imperishable position in the literature of the world are both due to his character-drawing. If we ask which of the men and women of Greek tragedy have an independent life in the imagination apart from the stage and from the actual plot in which they appear, we must answer, ‘those created by Sophocles, above all others’ (36).
Surely it can be said of Sophocles’ main characters that they grow beyond the two dimension...
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...ment of his edict; he changes after Teiresias’ visit and warning. Ismene and Haemon become dynamic later in the tragedy. Rarely does the dramatist use the chorus to convey information; most of this comes from exchanges of dialogue, which would be the showing technique.
WORKS CITED
Abrams, M. H. A Glossary of Literary Terms, 7th ed. New York: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1999.
Antigone by Sophocles. Translated by R. C. Jebb. no pag.
http://classics.mit.edu/Sophocles/antigone.html
Heidegger, Martin. “The Ode on Man in Sophocles’ Antigone.” In Sophocles: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Thomas Woodard. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966.
Jaeger, Werner. “Sophocles’ Mastery of Character Development.” In Readings on Sophocles, edited by Don Nardo. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1997.
In the awe-inspiring play of Antigone, Sophocles introduces two remarkable characters, Antigone and Creon. A conflict between these two obstinate characters leads to fatal consequences for themselves and their kindred. The firm stances of Creon and Antigone stem from two great imperatives: his loyalty to the state and her dedication to her family, her religion but most of all her conscience. The identity of the tragic hero of this play is still heavily debated. This tragedy could have been prevented if it had not been for Creon's pitiful mistakes.
Segal, Charles Paul. "Sophocles' Praise of Man and the Conflicts of the Antigone." In Sophocles: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Thomas Woodard. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966.
A “drug-free society” has never existed, and probably will never exist, regardless of the many drug laws in place. Over the past 100 years, the government has made numerous efforts to control access to certain drugs that are too dangerous or too likely to produce dependence. Many refer to the development of drug laws as a “war on drugs,” because of the vast growth of expenditures and wide range of drugs now controlled. The concept of a “war on drugs” reflects the perspective that some drugs are evil and war must be conducted against the substances
Harmon, William, and C. Hugh Holman. A Handbook to Literature. 8th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999.
Murray, Robert D. Jr. "Thought and Structure in Sophoclean Tragedy", in Sophocles, A Collection of Critical Essays, Woodward, Thomas, editor,
I base my support of the decriminalization of all drugs on a principle of human rights, but the horror and frustration with which I voice this support is based on practicality. The most tangible effect of the unfortunately labeled "Drug War" in the United States is a prison population larger than Russia's and China's, and an inestimable death toll that rivals the number of American casualties from any given war, disease or catastrophe.
Sophocles. Four Plays by Sophocles. Trans. Thomas H. Banks. New York: Oxford University Press, 1966.
Is Prohibition (defined as a government decree against the exchange of a good or service) actually successful in reducing recreational drug consumption and drug-related violence? This is the question that will be analyzed in this paper. Drug enforcement officials frequently cite drug-related violence as a reason that drugs must be eliminated from our society. A contrary belief is that the system of drug prohibition actually causes most of the violence. Similar to alcohol prohibition in the 1920s and the rise of organized crime, drug prohibition inspires a dangerous underground market that manifests itself with violent crime throughout the U.S. and, in fact, the world. The illegal nature of drugs has significantly increased the price and the
Boston: Pearson, 2013. 1396-1506. Print. The. Sophocles. “Oedipus the King” Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing.
I tried marijuana when I was in High School. Marijuana affects everyone differently, some people like it and some do not. After four years of occasional smoking I decided to quit last year. The good thing about marijuana is that you cannot get physically addicted to it. Many people including myself decided to stop smoking, and many have done it successfully. The effects that I experienced are: extreme stupidity, laughing for no reason, paranoia, and extreme laziness next morning. Paranoia is the worst effect of marijuana. When a person is paranoid, he/she starts thinking about the negative things which are hiding deep inside h...
Throughout the world, writers have shown their concern over a particular cause through the characters of their works. On the whole, Sophocles’ has beautifully shown Antigone as an inspiration. I quote,
The ineffaceable impression which Sophocles makes on us today and his imperishable position in the literature of the world are both due to his character-drawing. If we ask which of the men and women ofGreek tragedy have an independent life in the imagination apart from the stage and from the actual plot in which they appear, we must answer, ‘those created by Sophocles, above all others’ (36).
Sophocles. “Oedipus the King.” The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. 6th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002.
Do drugs really cause crime, or is it our governments way of controlling the communities? Many people blame drugs for every problem in our society, but is it the true evil in our society? No one person can answer that question. There are only opinions and supposed theories on this issue. We have been taught over the years that drugs were bad and that they only affected the poor and less fortunate, and turned them into crazy criminals, but this isn’t true to any extent. The laws controlling and prohibiting drugs are the true reasons. Would our crime levels decline if drugs were legalized to some extent, or would we just increase the destruction of our country? Over the past fifty years, prohibition has been proven to actually increase crime and drug use instead of its intended purpose, which was to extinguish the use of illicit drugs in the United States. We constantly here of prison over crowding, and why is that? Most of our prisons are filled with drug offenders, ranging from use to distribution of supposed illicit drugs. What is our country coming to? The purpose of this research paper is to view the advantages and disadvantages of the legalization of illicit drugs in the United States. I will examine each side of this major problem plaguing our fine country from past to present. People wake everyday to their normal and monotonous life without even thinking about what they are doing. They do not realize that they have been conditioned by the government and its laws to obey and follow the supposed norm of society. What is the norms of society, and who set the guidelines for them? No one can explain how these norms came about, they only know that they must follow them, or they could get in trouble with the law. We are going into the twenty first century, and we still follow laws that were passed hundreds of years ago. Why is this? We are a highly advanced country, but we spend time, lives and money on abiding by laws that were around before the automobile was even invented. I will begin with the history of our drug control policies, which have failed miserably, and examine the drug-crime connection. Policy History Drugs have been in this country since the beginning of time in some shape or form, which was used for personal and medicinal use. Usage of marijuana has been reported to date back to the founding of Jamestown (1). Ge...
Once drugs are legalized, they will certainly do more harm to the society and the number of drug users will also greatly increase. The proposal that the legalization of drugs can reduce harm is based on the current situation that the spreading of drugs can’t be rapidly ...