1. Getting ready to read: Antigone By Sophocles

2. Eteocles, son (and half brother) of Oedipus, nephew to Creon, was given the throne of Thebes after the exile and death of Oedipus.

3. Polyneices, other son of Oedipus and nephew of Creon, was promised that he would get to alternate as king of Thebes with his brother, Eteocles. However, when Eteocles would not give up the throne, Polyneices gathers an army and attacks Thebes, where both brothers kill each other outside the walls of the city.

4. Creon, brother to Jocasta (Oedipus’s wife and mother), then becomes king. He decrees that Eteocles would be buried with full military honors, while his brother, as a traitor and attacker of Thebes, will be left to rot on the ground and left as carrion for birds outside the gate of the city.

5. Antigone, daughter (and half-sister) of Oedipus, and sister to Eteocles and Polyneices, claims that not burying her brother is an offense against god and is absolutely against her religious beliefs as well as the religious beliefs of all of Thebes. She claims that he will be unable to enter heaven if he is not given a proper burial.

6. Antigone’s moral dilemma: Should she safely obey the law of the king and let her brother go unburied, therefore betraying her religious and moral beliefs? Or…Should she defy the law of the king, bury her brother, and face the fatal consequences?

7. The bigger questions: (Those that apply to modern society, meaning us) If we know that those in power are morally wrong, do we break their laws, or do we collaborate with them by obeying and cooperating? Or…When is civil disobedience an obligation? Is it ever an acceptable choice to break a law that is morally wrong?

8. Eteocles (brother) Polyneices (brother) Antigone (central character) Ismene (her sister) Creon (uncle/kings) Eurydice (Creon’s wife) Teiresias (blind prophet) Haimon (son of Creon, engaged to Antigone)

9. What examples of civil disobedience do you know about? Were those involved right or wrong to take the actions they did?