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More homework!

David Barrios
08-30-06
Period 6
Antigone – The Odes

1. Ode I, page 1271:

Ode I’s main theme are the great accomplishments of men by exulting our species and our great resourcefulness, intelligence and domineering nature over our world. It also points out our mortality and our own insignificance when compared to that of the gods. Among mankind’s amazing accomplishments discus are our ability to able to conquest and sail the oceans (lines 2-3), to cultivate the land and make Earth serve his purpose with agriculture (lines 4-6). Stanza two then has the Chorus speaking about mankind’s capability to conquer animals by domestication and hunting of even the most wild of the lot. (lines 7-12) with, the Chorus then praising our ability to think and connect thought with words and actions, something we’ve used to great results (lines 13-14), moving on to humanity’s organization into states and our creation of laws (line 14). After that, they note our ability to over come any hardships, like winter, which we can overcome. (lines 15-17). The third stanza then begins to discuss man’s tragic flaw: his own mortality, which is always quite inevitable. In this portion of the play, there is an air of warning and foreshadowing in the air made by Sophocles, essentially stating the main theme of all of his plays: the insignificance of mankind when compared to the Gods. Rhetorical devices in this Ode include:

• Imagery: “stormgray sea,” (line 2) “huge crests,” (line 3) and “Earth, holy and inexhaustible, is graven with shining furrows where his plows have gone.” (lines 4-5). “The linghtboned bird and beasts that cling to cover, the lithe fish lighting their reaches of dim water,” (lines 7-8) “The lion on the hill, the wild horse windy-maned,” (line 10) and “the sultry shoulders of the mountain bull.” (line 12). “thought as rapid as air,” (line 13) “arrows of snow, the spears of winter rain” (lines 15-16).
• Personification: “stormgray sea yields to his prow,” (lines 2-3) “the huge crests bear him high,” (line 3) and “Earth (…) is graven with shining furrows where his plows have gone.” (lines 4-5) “lightboned birds and beasts that cling to cover, the lithe fish lighting,” (lines 7-8) “The lion on the hill, the wild horse windy-maned resign to him” (lines 10-11) “his blunt yoke had broken” (line 11). “O clear intelligence, force beyond all measure, O fate of man, working both good and evil” (lines 19-20).
• Metaphor: “Year after year, the timeless labor of stallions.” (line 6) “tamed in the net of his mind” (line 9) “late wind of death” (line 18).
• Simile: “thought as rapid as air” (line13).
• Extended metaphor: “from every wind he has made himself secure—from all but one; In the late wind of death he cannot stand.” (lines 17-18)
• Anaphora: “O clear intelligence, O Fate of man,” (lines 19-20) “When the laws are kept, when the laws are broken,” (lines 21-22) and “Never may, Never be it said.” (lines 23-24)
• Rhetorical Question: “When the laws are broken, what of his city then?” (line 22)

• Effect: Ode I is filled with imagery whose purpose is to glorify mans power and dominance over the world. The metaphors and similes are used in order to emphasize his skills and dominance over nature. Bringing Nature alive, personification is used and shows the struggle between these two forces, while bringing more praise to mankind, because after all; since Nature is very difficult to dominate (Bus administration is taking care of that as we speak), the more the honor we deserve for making it submit. The use of Anaphorais quite important because it displays the downside to this all: how man’s intelligence can bring about his own demise, how fate, which has given him the power to reign over all other creatures, can suddenly turn against him, and if we ourselves can’t submit to our superior powers, then we’re going down faster than Ben Afleck’s career..

2. Ode II, page 1276:

In Ode II, the curse of Oedipus and its repercussion in his children’s lives is the chorus’ subject, filling us in on the events that came prior to the play. It also serves as a bridge from the last scene to the next: explaining Creon’s violent reaction to Antigone’s actions. It’s also send us a message about Creon’s hubris which will destroy him. His asserting his own rule over that of the God’s isn’t that smart since someone up there would think perhaps Creon is comparing himself to one of their own. It also sets up the next scene with Creon’s encounter with Haimon and his refusal to take the advice of his son because of Haimon’s youth. Sophocles continues his warnings against hubris to the audience, because after all: once you’ve pissed them off, you’re family line’s number is up and the god’s with their immortality and whatnot will take you down like the Kennedy’s. Whatever pleasure you may get from your pride will be overshadowed, especially when you gouge your eyes out. Rhetorical devices:

• Imagery: “the house is shaken,” (line 2) “black northeast,” (line 4) “drumming death upon windwhipped sand.” (line 6) “Sleep cannot lull him nor the effortless long months of the timeless gods: but he is young forever, and his house is the shining day of High Olympos” (lines 15-17).
• Simile: “Damnation rises behind each child like a wave cresting out…” (lines 3-4) “The walk with fixed eyes, as blind men walk” (line 24)
• Personification: “the anger of heaven has struck,” (line 2) “the long darkness under sea roars up and bursts…” (line 5-6) “I have seen this gathering sorrow (...) loom...” (lines 7-8) “This last flower (...) drank the sunlight...” (lines 10-11) “No pride on earth is free of the curse of heaven.” (line 20) “straying dreams of men,” (line 21) “ghosts of joy,” (line 22) “waking embers burn them,” (line 23) “ancient wisdom speaks.” (line 25)
• Allegory: “I have seen this gathering sorrow from time long past loom upon Oedipus’ children: generation form generation takes the compulsive rage of the enemy god.” (lines7-9)
• Extended Metaphor: “So lately this last flower of Oedipus’ line drank the sunlight! but now a passionate word and a handful of dust have closed up all its beauty” (lines 10-12)
• Assonance: “All that is and shall be, and all the past, is his” (lines 18-19)
• Aphorism: “Fate works most for woe with Folly’s fairest show” (lines 26-27)
• Metaphor: “Man’s little pleasure is the spring of sorrow” (line 28)

• Effect: Imagery in this Ode accentuates the wrath of the gods’. It also emphasizes the omnipresent nature of the gods. They know when you’ve been sleeping. They’ve know when you’re awake. They know when you’ve been bad or good, so be good for your cornea’s sake. In the first instance it appears, simile serves to illustrate the magnitude of the gods’ wrath once they’re really angry, and in its second appearance it illustrates man’s blindness to what is really going on, once again referring to Oedipus’ tragedy. The allegory in stanza two speaks about the wrath of the God’s and how they did poor Oedipus in and the rest of his line. Personification in this passage reminds you of what happenes to bad little boys filled with hubris. The extended metaphor in stanza 2 about Antigone being a flower starting to bloom on its own, still without the shadow of the curse, and then start to close as a result of her own doing, showing once more that fate is inescapable, regardless of how different a person you may be.

3. Ode III, page 1280:

Ode III speaks about the effect of love on men; how it turns blood against blood, only to make them both lose at the end. Love doesn’t care about the good and bad folks; once you are caught in the tender trap, regardless of how kind you are, you can be turned bad. The Chorus starts to blame love for all the tragedies in the play, since after all: a pair of pretty eyes and two normal decent men will fight to the death., iPotraying love as what it is: a two-sided affair in the sense that its lovely and yet can go south: in the first stanza it portrays all the frills, but in the second one, its portrays how it can destroy everything, and how in the end, earth is only Aphrodite’s playfield, and men and women her figurines. It refers to the prior scene in which Creon rejectes Haimon’s advice because he believed that Haimon was too much in love with Antigone to have an unbiased opinion on what her future should be. I believe at this point that the Chorus has changed their opinion about Antigone, saying that it is her pretty face who has set father against son, and how through her Aphrodite mocks humans and their inability to defend themselves from love. Rhetorical devices:
• Personification: “Love, (...) sea-wanderer, forest-visitor,” (lines1-5) Throughout the whole stanza; “A girl’s glance working the will of heaven” (line 15)
• Apostrophe: “Love, (…) even the Immortals cannot escape you” (lines 1-6)
• Metonymy: Using “Immortals” instead of God’s when referring to the higher beings. the use of the word “Love” for “Aphrodite” (lines 14-17)
• Imagery: “the just man’s consenting heart” (line 11)
• Simile: “Surely you swerve upon ruin the just man’s consenting heart” (lines 10-11)

• Effect: Personification is perhaps the most recognizable and important device in this Ode, personifying love and showing its effects on men and the gods; a force which can conquer gods and men alike and make them submit (Amen, brother). Apostrophe is also used; this Ode consists of the Chorus talking to Love, which is neither a real person or thing nor is it present. Metonymy is on hand and is used in two instances: in the first stanza, instead of calling the gods “gods,” Sophocles calls them “Immortals”, reminding you that mortality doesn’t matter nor does your very nature of being whether it be god or man. Sophocles in the second stanza quits referring to Aphrodite by name, but addresses her as “Love,” pointing out her role as goddess and her power Imagery and simile are used in unison in the second stanza to show how love does not discern between the bad and the good when it shoots its arrows. It may turn evil to good, or turn the just man’s heart to ill fortune.

4. Ode IV, page 1283:

Beginning with Antigone’s incarceration, the Chorus speaks of other women in mythological history who suffered her same fate. In the first stanza, Sophocles states that no one can escape fate and that Antigone’s fate was set before she buried her brother, Polynecies. The second stanza can be referring to Creon’s fate. We then delve into the never ending struggle between gods and mortals and how the God’s will tackle anyone who breaks the law of the God’s, regardless of who you are and your power. This poem is quite graphic because Sophocles wants to display some real examples of what happens to those who anger the God’s. Men are more inclined to comply under fear of pain and retaliation than under the promise of something better to come. Moreover, this Ode connects all scenes of the play speaking about Antigone and Creon, and it can even be said that the story of the son which stanza 3 talks about mirrors that of Haimon, as it also foreshadows what is going to happen to him as a consequence of his father’s actions. Rhetorical devices:

• Allusion: “All Danae’s beauty was locked away in a brazen cell where the sunlight could not come: a small room still as any grave, enclosed her.” (lines 1-3) “And Dryas’ son also, that furious king” (line 10) “And old men tell a half-remembered tale of horror” (lines 19-20) “Her father was the god of the North Wind and she was cradled by gales” (lines 29-30)
• Personification: “Destiny” (line 9) “his tongue had mocked,” (line 16) “his madness dies among the echoes” (line 13) “watched the shuttle plunge Four times,” (lines 25-26) “four blind wounds crying for revenge” (line 26) “deathless Fate found means” (line 33)
• Imagery: “No power in wealth or war or tough sea-blackened ships,” (lines 7-8) “Zeus in a rain of gold poured love upon her,” (line 5) “brazen cell where the sunlight could not come.” (line 2) “god’s prisoning anger,” (line 11) “his madness died among echoes,” (line 13) “fired the wrath of the nine Implacable Sisters,” (line 17-18) “deaf stone” (line 12) “a half-remembered tale of horror where a dark ledge splits the sea and a double surf beats on the gray shores,” (lines 19-21) “sick with hatred,” (lines 22-23) “ripped out his two sons’ eyes with her bloody hands” (line 24) “crying, tears, and blood mingled,” (line 27) “She raced with young colts on the glittering hills and walked untrammeled in the open light” (line 31-32)
• Metonymy: Using “Implacable Sisters” instead of “Muses” (line 18)
• Simile: “deathless Fate found means to build a tomb like yours for joy” (line 33-34)

• Effect: Allusion and imagery are important devices used, conveying Sophocles’s moral to the whole play which is: obey the Gods and live; contend and die. Oh, and let’s not forget that we must accept our fate. Imagery was used to scare the audience into compliance with its gory details of past men and women who suffered the same miseries as the protagonists of his play. The first and fourth stanzas refer to Antigone, by referring to beautiful and young women who have suffered the same untimely death she did. The third stanza alludes to Creon, and what he’s going to pay for his disobedience, arrogance and pride. The third stanza could be interpreted as discussing Haimon, the victim of the circumstance, trapped between his love for Antigone and his love for his father, and suffering death as a consequence of the struggle. Allusion goes hand in hand with the imagery in this Ode by reinforcing the moral by showing real people from history and how their actions, similar in nature to those of the play’s characters, earned them an early grave. Personification gives life to the force such as fate and destiny which see all the events of the play and our lives through. Also metonymy is used once more to reinforce the merciless nature of the gods when angered. Note that Sophocles chooses to call the nine Muses “Implacable Sisters” instead of their more widespread title.