Antigone

Lewis Galantière’s Introduction examines the Antigone myth by putting it in the context of the Oedipus trilogy by Sophocles, written over 2,400 years ago, as well as the historical context of Anouilh’s adaptation of the myth.

Antigone is the daughter of the former king of Thebes, Oedipus, and Queen Jocasta. In Oedipus Rex—the first of the Sophoclean trilogy—Oedipus discovers that he has accidentally fulfilled a terrible prophecy that predicted he would kill his father and marry his own mother. Horrified to learn of what he has done, Oedipus blinds himself and goes into exile, while Jocasta dies by suicide. In the second part of the Oedipus trilogy, Oedipus at Colonus, Oedipus ultimately dies in exile; after his death his daughter Antigone returns to Thebes. His sons, Eteocles and Polynices, take the throne in what are supposed to be alternating years of rule. However, “[t]he sons have incurred their father’s wrath and he has laid upon them a curse that they will die at one another’s hand” (8). This curse comes to pass, and it is Polynices’ resulting death that sets the stage for the conflict in Antigone, the third and final play of the trilogy, in which Antigone defies her uncle

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