Antigone 1001ments for the bricklaying and the group’s gathering
of materials. Although these scenes do not liven up
the plot, they continue the sense of time passing at
its gruelingly consistent pace.
Shukhov views the ability to work for pay as an
example of freedom. He imagines what his life will
be like when his prison sentence ends and hopes
that “he’d find work as a plumber, a carpenter, or a
repairman.” He fears not being able to earn money
through his skills but, instead, having to paint car-
pets with stencils for easy money. Shukhov, being
deprived of most of his rights as a citizen, cherishes
fair work as a way to feel as though he has a purpose.
He enjoys being busy, and preserves his image of a
good worker by keeping quality tools for himself.
Instead of turning the tools in at the end of the day,
Shukhov hides a trowel in the bricks to use again the
next day. He does not hoard tools out of greed but
keeps them to make his job more efficient. He treats
his daily tasks as though they are his true livelihood
and works with pride and efficiency.
Elizabeth Walpole
SoPHoCLES Antigone (ca. 442 b.c.)
In his long career, the Greek playwright, soldier, and
politician known as Sophocles wrote between 120
and 180 plays, the vast majority of them tragedies.
Theater was central to Athenian life, and plays were
performed in front of hundreds of spectators as well
as a panel of judges. As a young man, Sophocles
defeated the veteran dramatist Aeschylus in play
competitions and continued to be a major force
for the next six decades; it is generally held that he
won competitions at least 20 times, making him
by far the most famous of the fifth-century b.c.
playwrights. Prior to Sophocles’ ascendance, Greek
drama was performed with only two actors and a
chorus. Sophocles added a third actor, broadening
the range of theatrical possibilities. Unfortunately, of
his scores of plays, only seven are still extant: Ajax,
Antigone, Electra, oediPuS rex, Trachinae ( Women of
Tracis), Philoctetes and Oedipus at Colonus.
Sophocles takes for his subjects major char-
acters from Greek mythology—heroes, gods, and
goddesses whose actions, personalities, and stories
would have been familiar to his audience. As a tra-
gedian, he focused on the calamities that befell his
subjects, such as the madness and suicide of Ajax;
revenge in Electra; patricide, incest, and suicide in
the Oedipus cycle; the abandonment and then
expedience-driven retrieval by his comrades of
Philoctetes; the conflict between filial duty and civic
responsibility in Antigone; and the trials and tribula-
tions of Hercules in Trachinae.
Antigone is set in ancient Thebes. After the ban-
ishment of King Oedipus, his two sons, Eteocles and
Polyneices, battle for the throne. Both are killed, and
their uncle, Creon, becomes king. Because Eteocles
had been the ruler at the time of the conflict, he is
buried as a hero of Thebes; Polyneices is deemed a
traitor, and Creon decrees that his body will be left
in the open to be eaten by wild animals. Antigone,
sister to Polyneices and Eteocles, decides to defy
Creon’s order, and she secretly buries Polyneices.
When this is discovered, Creon condemns her to
death; her punishment is to be locked in a cave
until she dies of starvation. Haemon, the son of
Creon, is betrothed to Antigone and begs for her
life, but Creon refuses. The blind prophet Tiresias
then goes to Creon and tells him that the gods are
angry at his treatment of Antigone. After some vac-
illation, Creon decides to free Antigone and goes to
the cave where she has been imprisoned, only to dis-
cover that she has hanged herself and that Haemon
has taken his own life as well. Devastated, Creon
returns to the palace to find that his wife, Eurydice,
upon hearing the news of the deaths of Antigone
and Haemon, has cursed Creon and killed herself as
well. The play ends with Creon’s realization that his
refusal to allow the burial of Polyneices has resulted
in the deaths of the people dearest to him.
Today, even though we are separated from the
characters and the events of their lives by millennia,
their hopes, dreams, motivations, and actions are as
relevant and comprehensible to a modern audience
as they were in ancient Greece.
Grant SiskFamILy in Antigone
The role of family in ancient Greek society cannot
be overestimated. In the modern world, where even
the nuclear family is largely considered a temporary
arrangement, duty to family—particularly if it leads