Study Questions and Essay Topics
Halfway through the play, the Chorus highlights the stillness at the heart of tragedy. What is the significance of the stillness in the play?
Most of Antigone's commentators cast the play as an anti-fascist allegory of events of the French Resistance. How might one consider the play in such terms? What are some of the limits of this reading?
What is the function of the Guardsmen? Consider their dialogue, their interaction with the "major" players, the Chorus' comments on them, and so on.
Suggested Essay Topics
Consider the contrast and rivalry Anouilh establishes between Antigone and Ismene. What are the terms of both? How do they relate to Antigone's fate?
Consider Anouilh's use of humor. You may want to isolate one or two scenes for discussion. Examples include the dictation of Antigone's letter and Creon's caricature of Oedipus.
What is the function of the Chorus in Anouilh's play? How, for example, does it relate to the players? To the spectacle as a whole? You may want to consider such devices as address, stage positions, lighting, entrances and exits, and so on.
Halfway through the play, the Chorus declares that tragedy has "nothing to do with melodrama." What does the Chorus mean? Consider the influence of and departure from melodrama in Antigone.
What is the significance of saying "no" in this play? Who says "no" and to what? Consider how saying "no" figures as both an act and as an object of discussion.
Consider the trope of death in Antigone. How does death figure in the play? You may want to discuss the relations between death and, for example, space, narrative, rhythm, gesture, the body, the mask, the act, etc.
Consider the role of physical violence in the play. Who assaults whom, both on- stage and in anecdote? What is the significance of pain? You may want to isolate one or two scenes for close analysis.
