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The daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta, Antigone is an unconventional heroine who pits her beliefs against the King of Thebes in a bloody test of wills that leaves few unharmed. Emotions fly as she challenges the king for the right to bury her own brother. Determined but doomed, Antigone shows her inner strength throughout the play. Antigone raises issues of law and morality that are just as relevant today as they were more than two thousand years ago.

Have students dress up in robes and act out a scene. For some reason, reading plays while wearing robes makes them more interesting.

Some of the best scenes involve arguments and insults (Antigone v. Ismene; Creon v. Antigone; Haimon v. Creon; Creon v. Soothsayer). Have students translate the arguments into modern English or have them create dialogue between two characters in a different setting. 

1.  Are Conscience and Divine Law the same thing?

2.  Is Conscience, or merely the awareness of Conscience, variable from person to person? 

3.  What is the source of Conscience? Is it supernatural? Natural? or Human?

4.  What sort of evidence would we need to collect to answer or support an answer to Question #3? How would such evidence be gathered? 

5.  What is the connection between Civil Law and Divine Law, if any? 

6.  What exactly is meant by "fate" in Antigone? 

7.  Can "fate" be escaped or otherwise ameliorated? If so, how? 

8.  Does the "voice of Conscience" speak to us through our feelings, or does it speak to us in some other less obvious way? 

9.  Is Conscience anything like a poetic "muse" which uses us, as it were, as a kind of medium? 

10. To what extent does a social circumstance alter or (for that matter) produce a Conscience?

12.  What is the main characteristic of Tragedy? What is the difference between the tragic and the pathetic?

13.  Give some examples of pathos.

14. Give some examples of the current misuse of the term "tragedy."