Antigone Journal 4

Page 12

Ismene- His mob will come running, howling as it runs.
A thousand arms will seize our arms.  A thousand breaths
will breathe into our faces.  Like one single pair of eyes, a
thousand eyes will stare at is.  We'll be driven in a tumbrel
through their hatred, through the smell of them and their
cruel, roaring laughter.  We'll be dragged to the scaffold
for torture, surrounded by guards with their idiot faces all
bloated, their animal hands clean-washed for the sacrifice,
their beefy eyes squinting as they stare at us.

In the first sentence Anouilh uses imagery to describe how the city will react if they find out that Antigone buried Polynices.  He describes the "mob" by saying it will come "howling as it runs" suggesting that it will be sort of wild or dog-like, like a pack of wolves.  Anouilh gives the mob characteristics of a pack of wolves or animals in order to create a more barbaric tone.  In the next couple sentences, Anouilh juxtaposes a single pair of eyes to a thousand.  Using this juxtaposition, Anouilh displays the power of the law, and shows how people can tend to follow orders from a government without even questioning if they make sense or if they are just.  Anouilh uses sensory details in the next sentence, "the smell of them and their cruel, roaring laughter."  The sensory details of the sound of laughter being converted into a smell intensifies the mood and the reader gets a better sense of what the mob would look and sound like.  Anouilh repeats images of animals throughout this passage by using words like howling, beefy eyes, and animal hands.  This repetition, again, shows how people in the society can do things impulsively and create mayhem without thinking what they are actually doing.

Antigone Journal 3

In Antigone, I found it interesting how Anouilh contrasts life and death.  In Antigone's argument with Creon, Anouilh uses Antigone to represent death and uses Creon to represent life.  Even though Creon wanted to give Antigone a chance at keeping her life, Antigone persisted on Creon doing his duty to arrest her and have her put to death.  This conflict of interest creates tension not only between Antigone and Creon, but also between Antigone and Ismene at the beginning of the play.  Ismene tries to persuade Antigone to not bury Polynices, and Antigone refuses. Antigone is also faced with the conflict within herself, that if she buries Polynices, his death will be justified, but in turn, she would be killed if she followed her emotions and granted Polynices a peaceful eternal rest.  The conflicting between ideas of life and death correlate with the conflict of happiness vs. misery, or unhappiness.  Creon firmly believes that choosing life would result in happiness for Antigone, but she explains that choosing life, and not being able to bury Polynices would result in her life being pointless or unfulfilled.  Antigone didn't believe that happiness would ever be fully reached, whether she didn't bury Polynices and ended up living, or whether she died, in which case she would not be able to show emotion and be happy.

Antigone Journal 2

-Polynices dies
-Creon outlaws the burial of Polynices
-Antigone goes to Haemons house wearing Ismenes dress and makeup (I'm guessing thats what rogue is)
-Haemon and Antigone have a quarrel
-Antigone buries Polynices
-Antigone returns home
-Nurse questions Antigone
-Ismene pleads to Antigone to not disobey the law of their father and bury Polynices
-Antigone tells Haemon they would never be able to be married
-Haemon leaves
-Ismene pleads a second time to Antigone to not bury Polynices
-Antigone reveals to Ismene that she buried Polynices

Antigone Journal 1

I would stage the scene as having a main floor area with a large, wide set of steps leading up to a second floor.  On the main floor, there would be a semi-long dining table off to the left hand side of the stage and the following characters would be positioned as described.

Antigone would be sitting at the top of the stairs sitting perfectly still with her hands around her knees while blankly staring off into the distance (into the audience) so as to picture her as being helpless and morbid as the Chorus describes her fate.

The Guards would be playing cards on the stairs off to the side and down a ways from Antigone, with drunken and carefree looks on their faces to contrast with Antigones blank stares.

The Chorus would be multiple people standing on the top step next to Antigone.  The people composing the Chorus would have a variety of different sarcastic sounds to their voices so as to display a more mocking tone.

Eurydice would sit in a rocking chair, knitting, on the second floor isolated from the rest of the group to display her distance and detachment from the rest of the people.

The Nurse would be standing off to the right side of the main floor observing all of the activity (at the party or gathering, it doesn't really say)

Ismene would be on the right end of the table with Haemon nudging up close to her.  He is flirting with Ismene in a slightly withdrawn way because his lover Antigone is in the room.

Creon is sitting at the farthest left end of the table, slumped over in his chair with an irritated and disheartened look on his face.  He is not the kind of person who actually enjoys his position, but does it anyway just because he has to, and "he wonders whether this business of being a leader  of men is worth the trouble" (4).

We Journal #3

Structure of the society

The structure of society in We is based upon the governments control of peoples privacy, personal lives, and daily schedules.  There is a system of enforcement within the society that uses enforcers called "the Guardians."  The Guardians are basically the secret police of the One State, and carry out the laws of the government.  However, because of the nature of the citizens and their customs and beliefs (logic and reason), people generally see no reason to disobey the law and cause disorder and chaos within their seemingly perfect world.  Even with people in a general state of tranquility, the Guardians seek out the tiny imperfections within the One State, and the people who imbalance the perfect equation of happiness.  

In order to better enforce the rules and regulations put in place, the society is centered within a nation constructed almost entirely of glass.  The buildings in which people live, work, and do almost anything during their day are transparent and clear, leaving whatever takes place inside completely vulnerable to the observation of others.  This, obviously makes it much easier to enforce laws by being able to clearly see what people are doing at all times (except while their blinds are closed). 

The One State controls what everyone is doing at any given moment (except for the “personal hour”), by requiring ciphers to follow a distinct chart.  The “Table of Hours”, as it is called, is basically a schedule that tells people what they should be doing at a certain time in the day.  For example, it shows exactly what times they need to wake up, eat, go to work, have their “personal hour” and go to sleep.  The government also controls who people have sexual relations with, and how often.  By using genetic information from individuals, the state determines how often you should have sex, and whom you would be best suited to be sexual partners with.  By taking away the sanctity and sacredness of sex, the government takes away peoples individual rights, and makes sex seem more like a regular activity than a sacred experience.

We Journal #2

This passage is located on page 36 "It was long ago [...] was beyond ratio"  In the passage, D-503 describes the events which took place when he was introduced to the frustratingly difficult concept of irrational numbers.  D-503's demand for everything in the world around him to be rational and logical comes into conflict when he learns of the √-1. 


Moment of Conflict:  In this passage, D-503 explains that when he learned of √-1, he wept, and he "beat [his] fists upon the table and wailed: 'I don't want √-1!  Take √-1 out of me!'" This display of frustration towards this mind-boggling math concept shows his requirement for logical/rational theories and formulas in order to make sense of the world around him.  D-503's need for rational ideas appears throughout the book and it suggests that societies that are based purely upon logic and reason do not have the ability to expand and grow because of the restrictions it places upon individuals. 


Key Characterization:  In reading this passage, one can greatly understand D-503's discomfort with illogical and irrational concepts.  By showing D-503 as becoming so infuriated because of an – from the readers point of view– insignificant math term, he is portrayed as ill-tempered and easily angered.  Zamyatin suggests that D-503's need for logical answers is overpowered by his emotions.  By giving D-503's emotion precedence over his mental need for reason, he suggests that human nature requires that people express emotion.  Therefore, he shows that the society's system of logic before emotion is impossible.