First Reading Antigone The Reader example essay topic

Be careful of what you say and how you say it because you never know what fate has in store for you. This is one the points Sophocles gives his readers in his drama Antigone. The dialog of his drama is very compelling and intricate. Sophocles wrote this for an audience of people who were morally corrupt and in need of someone to tell them the consequences of their actions.

To those people in ancient Greece, the dialog was easy to follow and the point was made clear but people today have to read and reread until the point is made clear. Also we get to find the meanings behind the words; we get to see what others don't see. There are so many aspects of this play worth analyzing but the best of them all is the dialog that Sophocles created. In this essay you will see how there was more revealed than thought on first glance. You will see how Sophocles' characters made predictions about themselves and how when you read the play again and again things are better explained through the dialog instead of narration. In Antigone, Sophocles tells the story of a young woman who when faced with the decision to defy the God's whom she so loves or the King, she has no problem defying the King.

The King on the other hand has no problem defying the laws of the God's. Each person has consequences to face but the difference between the girl and the King is that the girl knows what fate lies ahead and if she defies the King there are dire consequences but she does nothing to change her fate. The King is driven by his need to prove a point to the city, he doesn't heed the warnings of his son or that of the seer until it's too late and he loses everything. Sophocles gives a lot of hints to what is going to happen in this drama through the dialogue. When first reading Antigone the reader may not pick up on the subtle hints that are given but when the reader goes back and reads it a second or maybe third time those subtle hints become clear. Take for instance when Creon tells Antigone, "Know, then, minds too stiff most often stumble, and the rigid steel baked in the furnace, made exceeding hard, thou seest most often split and broken lie" (ll 521-524).

Creon is telling Antigone how stubborn people will eventually fall, and the reader will eventually see that not only is he talking about Antigone's stubbornness but also his own. Antigone is put to death by mortal hands for her stubbornness, but her belief is that the God's will forgive her because she didn't defy their laws. Creon is meets his ill fate by the hands of the God's. Not only did he hurt Antigone with his stubbornness but he also hurt his entire family. He lost his son and his wife in one day. Sophocles' writing is brilliant because so much is revealed but the reader has to actually delve deeper than the surface.

It's dialog like this that makes Antigone a great drama. Not only does Sophocles show us the duality in the dialog but he also introduces key elements of the plot through the dialog. One element that was a brilliant touch was when Is mene says, "And wilt thou slay thy son's betrothed bride" (line 648). Surely the reader gasps upon knowing that Creon would have no qualms about putting his own son's betrothed to death. But that is what it is intended to do, shock the reader.