This is a character analysis I wrote for my acting class. We had to answer some specific questions, and though it was assigned as an essay type thingamabob, I chose to write it in more of a poemy form.
ANTIGONE
I am the child of a legend,
one enduring face of antiquity.
I am the bastard daughter of Oedipus, King,
the legend itself.
My mother gave birth to my father,
whose mother gave birth to me,
both disgracing themselves for eternity.
I am a woman of backbone,
who seeks justice, and who has learned
to love without, despite conditions.
The perils of this world do not frighten me,
so long as I am conscious of those things
for which I would be willing to die.
___
I exist in antiquity,
in the elder days of Greece.
Within, I exist at a time of unrest,
in the aftermath of a storm
that bouldered to its end just last night,
outside the gates of my city.
___
It is that city which surrounds me.
Thebes, where my father ruled.
Thebes, where I now dwell.
Thebes where I will soon go the way of all flesh.
___
This I know because I have defied the king.
My circumstances are doomed,
as I have buried my brother,
whose body was to be left on the battlefield
to rot without honor,
to be picked apart by careless, opportunist birds.
I have been found out,
for I did not hide in fear,
nor did I act in secret.
Creon, King, demands my punishment.
Gladly will I take it.
Proudly will I meet his gaze and perish.
___
This man who demands my life,
who insists upon my punishment,
Creon, King, would have been my father.
He is mine enemy who would have been my friend.
For my dearest friend, my betrothed,
was his own son, Haemon.
Haemon was to be my husband,
Creon to be my father,
Oedipus to be my father,
Polyneices to be my brother,
Eteocles to be my brother,
Ismene to be my sister.
But because life is defined by entropy,
so do all relationships fall to chaos,
in one form or another.
Some are yours until death,
while others turn from you before death.
Either way, they leave you.
___
The things I want are too many to count,
as is the way of all human souls.
But in one small fraction of my soul,
I want my sister to find her defiance,
her strength to overcome her fear.
I want my brothers to be buried as equals,
to be honored as equals,
to be remembered as brothers.
I want Creon, King, to wonder at my death,
to envy my strength,
to curse my lack of fear.
I want him to tear himself apart
upon the realization of his feeble, wretched weakness.
___
I will have what I want,
once I am dead.
I will be remembered for what I stood for,
what I died for.
My brothers will become worthy
of another’s life;
My sister will find her defiance
through the injustice of my death;
And Creon, King will wonder and envy and tear himself apart.
___
This is what I do to achieve the things I want.
I die.
