Ms. Rich's English Page

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• English IV AP

• English IV

• English II Honors

E-mail to: ms.rich@att.net

English IV AP

• Student Responsibilities

• Journal Project

• Preface to Thematic Study

• Introduction to Awareness

[Top of the Page]

1. You are responsible for all work, assignments, tests, and material covered in class regardless of whether or not you are present.

2. All assignments are due on the assigned date:

• Major writing assignments or projects will be marked down 4 points for each calendar day that it is late. If you are absent the day that a major writing assignment is due, e-mail the paper to me at ms.rich@att.net
• If you are absent, you will be expected to make up homework assignments within one (1) day of your return to class. (Exceptions will be made in cases of a lengthy absence.)

3. All major writing assignments must be typed, double-spaced using standard margins and 12 pt type, and include focus correction comments from the previous assignment. All other work must be submitted on loose leaf paper and written in ink.

4. Students are responsible for taking all tests/quizzes.

• If you are absent for one day on the day of the test/quiz, you will be expected to make it up on the day you return to class.
• If you are absent for one day the day before a test, you will be given one day to obtain class notes, etc., and will make it up the following day.
• Please see me during homeroom period if unusual circumstances create a problem. Do not show up in class unprepared and asking for an extension.
• Anyone who does not make up a test will receive a grade of 0%.

5. Planned absences:

• Students are responsible for seeing me prior to the absence for assignments.
• Work due on the date of the absence, tests/quizzes/assignments, must be taken care of prior to the date of the absence unless other arrangements have been made prior to the absence.

6. Surprise "reading check" quizzes may be given at any time.

7. Your quarter grade will be averaged as follows:

• 40%--homework and quizzes
• 40%--tests and major writing assignments
• 20%--class participation

8. Class participation will be evaluated daily in terms of your contribution to class discussions, insightful responses and questions, and critical thinking skills. (Taking note and attentiveness are expected and result in a minimal grade.)

9. You are expected to show to everyone in this classroom respect, courtesy, and a tolerance of ideas.

10. Honesty is expected. Cheating in any form will not be tolerated.

[Top of the Page]

[English IV AP]

1. Taste test. You will need a partner for this exercise. Blindfold yourself and have your partner give you similar type items to taste and identify. E.g. various brands of colas, types of apples, types of pears, brands of vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt. After the test write about the experience and try to describe the tastes using precise language.

7. On several pieces of lined paper, print your name vertically putting each letter in your name on a separate line. Give the sheets to various members of your family-- mother, father, sibling you feel closest to, sibling you usually are in conflict with, and to various friends. Ask each person to complete the exercise alone. Ask the person to write down an adjective beginning with each letter in your name that he or she feels best describes you. Analyze the completed lists objectively. What did you learn about yourself from other people's impressions of you? Do you reveal different aspects of yourself to different people? Were adjectives repeated on the different lists? Do you agree with people's choices of adjectives?

9. Take a new page in your journal and draw the face of a clock without the hands. As you look at the clock, ask yourself the question, "What time is it in my life?" After thinking about the question, answer it by drawing in the hands on clock. In your entry reflect on your clock.

10. As a follow-up to exercise # 9, respond to the following statements:

[Top of the Page]

[English IV AP]

PREFACE to MAN & HIS MEASURE

A Thematic Anthology edited by Francis Connolly                                                                     

THE AIM of this book is to offer some representative writings that, taken individually, will provide genuine enjoyment and, taken together, will direct the reader's attention to the perennial questions: What is man?  What is his measure?  This aim presupposes that literary achievement consists in good part of an imaginative realization of what these questions imply.  It presupposes, too, that the surest way to excite interest in literary technique and scholarship is to exhibit the permanent concern of literature for man's permanent questions.

The design of this anthology is thematic.  The theme is "man and his measure." Part One, 'What Is Man?" shows how literature, in various forms (drama, essay, short story, and poem) and in its full range from the classical period to the present, explores the question: What does it mean to be a man?  The selections in "The Beginning of Awareness," demonstrate that man is intellectually aware; he sees, feels, thinks, and responds to his experiences.  The selections in "The Heroic Image," show how this awareness gives rise to aspiration: man hopes to achieve his full human destiny, and thus he models himself according to various heroic, or anti-heroic, patterns.  Some inevitable consequences of his aspirations are defeat, fear, and suffering.  The tragic experiences from which he may derive a purer sense of his selfhood and of his common humanity are described in the selections in "The Tragic Experience."

In Part One, then, the reader may trace man's development as it is reflected in and through literature from an initial awareness of experience and language to an awareness of his own awareness--that is, to a fuller consciousness of his many powers of sensation, feeling, thought, and expression.  Man is aware, man hopes and aspires.  Man weeps, he laughs, he reflects upon, and words his experiences.  But this paradigm hardly exhausts the mystery of man.  Nor does it supply the measure according to which we may estimate the value of his experiences.

In Part Two, "What Is Man's Measure?" focuses on literature that embodies a "morality of aspiration," that searches for measures of intellectual excellence, moral integrity, and happiness.  'The Measure of Justice," records man's struggle to be just in his relations with society, with the state, with governments, with his fellow man, and, above all, with his own conscience. 

Some who use this book will want to stress the relevance of literature to human needs; still others the importance of understanding that literature as a whole is a continuous dialogue between past and present.

   A central purpose of Man and His Measure is to challenge the student to think in a personal way about the most important problems of human existence, to provide a context within which be can develop his thoughts, and, above all, to encourage him to write, and thus to enter, however modestly, into that continuous civilized conversation we call humane literature. The key word here is search.  Search implies that we approach literature with questions like Who am I?  Who ought I to become?  What do I know?  What ought I to know?  It may be that many readers will find some of the answers they seek.  It is certain, however, that all readers will discover that seeking is finding, especially when their seeking advances in depth and perspective.  To ask questions is to foreshadow answers.  For we cannot seek, we cannot question without first possessing, however obscurely, some intuition into the meanings that are both the incentives and the goals of our study.

                                                                                                                  FRANCIS CONNOLLY

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[English IV AP]

                                                 THE BEGINNING OF AWARENESS

                                                       Experience and Language

I N T R 0 D U C T I 0 N

I

  WH E N we speak of awareness, what do we mean?  The word itself means to be wary, to be awake, to recognize what may easily be overlooked.  It implies a state of heightened consciousness in which we respond to individual sights and sounds and, more importantly, to the meanings of our perceptions, our feelings, our thoughts, our actions, and our resolutions.  In short, to be aware is to be alive to ourselves, to our personal being.

In literature awareness goes by other names.  A writer is said to be aware when he responds to experience with understanding, imagination, and sympathy.  All these terms imply that the writer has seen vividly, has felt intensely, has recorded exactly memorable impressions that, by virtue of his literary skill, come into our possession.  Henry James summed up his advice to young writers in two principles.  The first was: "Write from experience only." But then James hastened to add: "Try to be one of the people on whom nothing is lost!" Thus the writer is one who benefits by experience; what he receives from life he gives to his readers.  Awareness, then, is a combination of the power to receive from life and the power to communicate what one has received.

Perhaps the writer's greatest gift to us is his communication of his own creative power.  He does this by inducing us to become, in a sense, co-creators in his own work.  To know him we must read his work warily, alert not only to the literal what of his language, but to its nuanced and modifying how.  The writer's how is the particular form and convention in which he chooses to express himself and the tone of voice that he employs directly in his own address, as in the essay, or obliquely through fictitious persons, as in the story, poem, or drama.  A vigilant reader re-creates what the author has written in the total sense of what and how.

The reader can advance to a higher degree of awareness, one that involves creative activity of his own.  This activity is simply his response to a work of literature.  True, one cannot talk back to a book as one can to a living person.  Nevertheless, all literature is a kind of dialogue in which the reader takes an active part by questioning, interpreting, comparing, contrasting, and judging the author's work.  Where the reader approves, he tends to expand and apply the insights of the writer to his own experience.  Where he disapproves, he tends to develop the points of difference by proposing other points of view or opposite assumptions.  Live literature provokes creative thinking, blessing, in Portia's phrase, him that takes as well as him that gives.

While all literature, whatever its theme, stimulates our awareness, the literature centering on the theme of self-knowledge touches us to the quick; it compels us to look first at the experiences of others, then to discover and examine experiences of our own.  In the selections that follow, you will find a common concern with the theme of self-knowledge, of initial moral awareness.  Most of the stories, essays, and poems are directly concerned with youth; all deal with some aspect of "growing up."

II

  IN WILLIAM FAULKNER'S "The Bear" young Isaac McCaslin goes on a hunt.  The hunt is exciting in itself; but "The Bear" is more importantly the story of young McCaslin's growing awareness of his heritage and his personal destiny.  At the end, his father's words render the theme explicitly:

"Courage, and honor, and pride," his father said, "and pity, and love of justice and liberty.  They all touch the heart, and what the heart holds to becomes truth, as far as we know the truth.  Do you see now?" . . .

"Yes, sir," he said.

The boy in "Sled" also comes to his moment of awareness when, after gratuitously and maliciously deceiving his sister, he tastes the misery of remorse.  "He was wishing that he were some time a long time away from now and somewhere a long way away from here." Like Isaac, he sees, once his heart is touched. 

III

I F P R 0 S E literature is the artistic record of those luminous moments in which sense is radiant with intelligence and feeling, then what is poetry?  Poetry too is just such a record.  But it speaks a special language--one that is necessarily more concentrated, more selective in its diction, more intensely expressed, and hence more tightly organized in a structure of words and sounds.  Prose is recitation; poetry is song, chant, evocation.  Poetry conveys meanings far beyond those contained in its explicit statements.  Like music, it vibrates in the memory, echoing with a different resonance in different souls.

The vigilant reader will attempt to receive each resonance--not necessarily to agree with it, for the resonance of poetry is not arguable-but to recognize it as a particular sensibility responding to a particular human predicament.  The poem is the meeting ground of two souls, not merely of two intellects.

This description of the awareness found in a poem implies that poetry is intensely personal.  So it is.  The poems in this section all deal with revelations derived by observation and reflection on some aspect of childhood.  They all express some feeling about childhood, yet all take different points of view.  Walt Whitman's lyric "Beginning My Studies" conveys a note of wonder in a brief soliloquy.  John Crowe Ransom warns his school girls that their beauty is perishable.  For Francis Thompson childhood is a mingling of sadness in the sweet and sweetness in the sad. In his elaborate "Ode: Intimations of Immortality," William Wordsworth speculates on the presence of the divine in the child and in nature.  One man carols joyfully; another laments; yet another contemplates a philosophy.  Each one puts us in possession of the poet's experience in language that is at once recognizable yet strange.  Each man, by recording his personal history, awakens our own conscious personality. For a measure of man, as of literature, is the quality of awareness; we achieve a human size when we are one of those on whom "nothing is lost."

[Top of the Page]

[English IV AP]

English IV

• Student Responsibilities

• Journal Project

• Analytical Essay

• Focus Correction Sheet

• Introduction to Awareness

• Questions on "The Bear"

• Questions on "The Sled"

[Top of the Page]

1. You are responsible for all work, assignments, tests, and material covered in class regardless of whether or not you are present.

2. All assignments are due on the assigned date:

• Major writing assignments or projects will be marked down 4 points for each calendar day that it is late. If you are absent the day that a major writing assignment is due, e-mail the paper to me at ms.rich@att.net
• If you are absent, you will be expected to make up homework assignments within one (1) day of your return to class. (Exceptions will be made in cases of a lengthy absence.)

3. All major writing assignments must be typed, double-spaced using standard margins and 12 pt type, and include focus correction comments from the previous assignment. All other work must be submitted on loose leaf paper and written in ink.

4. Students are responsible for taking all tests/quizzes.

• If you are absent for one day on the day of the test/quiz, you will be expected to make it up on the day you return to class.
• If you are absent for one day the day before a test, you will be given one day to obtain class notes, etc., and will make it up the following day.
• Please see me during homeroom period if unusual circumstances create a problem. Do not show up in class unprepared and asking for an extension.
• Anyone who does not make up a test will receive a grade of 0%.

5. Planned absences:

• Students are responsible for seeing me prior to the absence for assignments.
• Work due on the date of the absence, tests/quizzes/assignments, must be taken care of prior to the date of the absence unless other arrangements have been made prior to the absence.

6. Surprise "reading check" quizzes may be given at any time.

7. Your quarter grade will be averaged as follows:

• 40%--homework and quizzes
• 40%--tests and major writing assignments
• 20%--class participation

8. Class participation will be evaluated daily in terms of your contribution to class discussions, insightful responses and questions, and critical thinking skills. (Taking note and attentiveness are expected and result in a minimal grade.)

9. You are expected to show to everyone in this classroom respect, courtesy, and a tolerance of ideas.

10. Honesty is expected. Cheating in any form will not be tolerated.

[Top of the Page]

[English IV]

1. Taste test. You will need a partner for this exercise. Blindfold yourself and have your partner give you similar type items to taste and identify. E.g. various brands of colas, types of apples, types of pears, brands of vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt. After the test write about the experience and try to describe the tastes using precise language.

7. On several pieces of lined paper, print your name vertically putting each letter in your name on a separate line. Give the sheets to various members of your family-- mother, father, sibling you feel closest to, sibling you usually are in conflict with, and to various friends. Ask each person to complete the exercise alone. Ask the person to write down an adjective beginning with each letter in your name that he or she feels best describes you. Analyze the completed lists objectively. What did you learn about yourself from other people's impressions of you? Do you reveal different aspects of yourself to different people? Were adjectives repeated on the different lists? Do you agree with people's choices of adjectives?

9. Take a new page in your journal and draw the face of a clock without the hands. As you look at the clock, ask yourself the question, "What time is it in my life?" After thinking about the question, answer it by drawing in the hands on clock. In your entry reflect on your clock.

10. As a follow-up to exercise # 9, respond to the following statements:

[Top of the Page]

[English IV]

[Top of the Page]

[English IV]

                                                 THE BEGINNING OF AWARENESS

                                                       Experience and Language

I N T R 0 D U C T I 0 N

I

  WH E N we speak of awareness, what do we mean?  The word itself means to be wary, to be awake, to recognize what may easily be overlooked.  It implies a state of heightened consciousness in which we respond to individual sights and sounds and, more importantly, to the meanings of our perceptions, our feelings, our thoughts, our actions, and our resolutions.  In short, to be aware is to be alive to ourselves, to our personal being.

In literature awareness goes by other names.  A writer is said to be aware when he responds to experience with understanding, imagination, and sympathy.  All these terms imply that the writer has seen vividly, has felt intensely, has recorded exactly memorable impressions that, by virtue of his literary skill, come into our possession.  Henry James summed up his advice to young writers in two principles.  The first was: "Write from experience only." But then James hastened to add: "Try to be one of the people on whom nothing is lost!" Thus the writer is one who benefits by experience; what he receives from life he gives to his readers.  Awareness, then, is a combination of the power to receive from life and the power to communicate what one has received.

Perhaps the writer's greatest gift to us is his communication of his own creative power.  He does this by inducing us to become, in a sense, co-creators in his own work.  To know him we must read his work warily, alert not only to the literal what of his language, but to its nuanced and modifying how.  The writer's how is the particular form and convention in which he chooses to express himself and the tone of voice that he employs directly in his own address, as in the essay, or obliquely through fictitious persons, as in the story, poem, or drama.  A vigilant reader re-creates what the author has written in the total sense of what and how.

The reader can advance to a higher degree of awareness, one that involves creative activity of his own.  This activity is simply his response to a work of literature.  True, one cannot talk back to a book as one can to a living person.  Nevertheless, all literature is a kind of dialogue in which the reader takes an active part by questioning, interpreting, comparing, contrasting, and judging the author's work.  Where the reader approves, he tends to expand and apply the insights of the writer to his own experience.  Where he disapproves, he tends to develop the points of difference by proposing other points of view or opposite assumptions.  Live literature provokes creative thinking, blessing, in Portia's phrase, him that takes as well as him that gives.

While all literature, whatever its theme, stimulates our awareness, the literature centering on the theme of self-knowledge touches us to the quick; it compels us to look first at the experiences of others, then to discover and examine experiences of our own.  In the selections that follow, you will find a common concern with the theme of self-knowledge, of initial moral awareness.  Most of the stories, essays, and poems are directly concerned with youth; all deal with some aspect of "growing up."

II

  IN WILLIAM FAULKNER'S "The Bear" young Isaac McCaslin goes on a hunt.  The hunt is exciting in itself; but "The Bear" is more importantly the story of young McCaslin's growing awareness of his heritage and his personal destiny.  At the end, his father's words render the theme explicitly:

"Courage, and honor, and pride," his father said, "and pity, and love of justice and liberty.  They all touch the heart, and what the heart holds to becomes truth, as far as we know the truth.  Do you see now?" . . .

"Yes, sir," he said.

The boy in "Sled" also comes to his moment of awareness when, after gratuitously and maliciously deceiving his sister, he tastes the misery of remorse.  "He was wishing that he were some time a long time away from now and somewhere a long way away from here." Like Isaac, he sees, once his heart is touched. 

III

I F P R 0 S E literature is the artistic record of those luminous moments in which sense is radiant with intelligence and feeling, then what is poetry?  Poetry too is just such a record.  But it speaks a special language--one that is necessarily more concentrated, more selective in its diction, more intensely expressed, and hence more tightly organized in a structure of words and sounds.  Prose is recitation; poetry is song, chant, evocation.  Poetry conveys meanings far beyond those contained in its explicit statements.  Like music, it vibrates in the memory, echoing with a different resonance in different souls.

The vigilant reader will attempt to receive each resonance--not necessarily to agree with it, for the resonance of poetry is not arguable-but to recognize it as a particular sensibility responding to a particular human predicament.  The poem is the meeting ground of two souls, not merely of two intellects.

This description of the awareness found in a poem implies that poetry is intensely personal.  So it is.  The poems in this section all deal with revelations derived by observation and reflection on some aspect of childhood.  They all express some feeling about childhood, yet all take different points of view.  Walt Whitman's lyric "Beginning My Studies" conveys a note of wonder in a brief soliloquy.  John Crowe Ransom warns his school girls that their beauty is perishable.  For Francis Thompson childhood is a mingling of sadness in the sweet and sweetness in the sad. In his elaborate "Ode: Intimations of Immortality," William Wordsworth speculates on the presence of the divine in the child and in nature.  One man carols joyfully; another laments; yet another contemplates a philosophy.  Each one puts us in possession of the poet's experience in language that is at once recognizable yet strange.  Each man, by recording his personal history, awakens our own conscious personality. For a measure of man, as of literature, is the quality of awareness; we achieve a human size when we are one of those on whom "nothing is lost."

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[English IV]

11. Based on the description of the encounter, what might the bear symbolize or represent? Find some supportive evidence.

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[English IV]

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[English IV]

English II Honors

• Student Responsibilities

• Antigone Vocabulary

• Structure of the Greek Theater

• Reading Guide for Antigone

• Antigone Character Comparison Worksheet

• Personal Poem

[Top of the Page]

1. You are responsible for all work, assignments, tests, and material covered in class regardless of whether or not you are present.

2. All assignments are due on the assigned date:

• Major writing assignments or projects will be marked down 4 points for each calendar day that it is late. If you are absent the day that a major writing assignment is due, e-mail the paper to me at ms.rich@att.net
• If you are absent, you will be expected to make up homework assignments within one (1) day of your return to class. (Exceptions will be made in cases of a lengthy absence.)

3. All major writing assignments must be typed, double-spaced using standard margins and 12 pt type, and include focus correction comments from the previous assignment. All other work must be submitted on loose leaf paper and written in ink.

4. Students are responsible for taking all tests/quizzes.

• If you are absent for one day on the day of the test/quiz, you will be expected to make it up on the day you return to class.
• If you are absent for one day the day before a test, you will be given one day to obtain class notes, etc., and will make it up the following day.
• Please see me during homeroom period if unusual circumstances create a problem. Do not show up in class unprepared and asking for an extension.
• Anyone who does not make up a test will receive a grade of 0%.

5. Planned absences:

• Students are responsible for seeing me prior to the absence for assignments.
• Work due on the date of the absence, tests/quizzes/assignments, must be taken care of prior to the date of the absence unless other arrangements have been made prior to the absence.

6. Surprise "reading check" quizzes may be given at any time.

7. Your quarter grade will be averaged as follows:

• 40%--homework and quizzes
• 40%--tests and major writing assignments
• 20%--class participation

8. Class participation will be evaluated daily in terms of your contribution to class discussions, insightful responses and questions, and critical thinking skills. (Taking note and attentiveness are expected and result in a minimal grade.)

9. You are expected to show to everyone in this classroom respect, courtesy, and a tolerance of ideas.

10. Honesty is expected. Cheating in any form will not be tolerated.

[Top of the Page]

[English II Honors]

calamity                                       magnitude                                             omen

prerogative                                  imprecation                                           carrion

meddle                                        libation                                                  bandy

denounce                                     obstinate                                             Exodos

Parados                                     transgress                                             swoon

sate                                             dire                                                     discretion

arrogant                                     renown                                                 ominous

impious                                     reconcile

rampart                                     lurk

frenzy                                       subverter

tempestuous                             taunt

edict                                        insolence

rally                                        illusion

scorn                                     Episode III

lament                                     enmity

mangle                                     vindicate

requite                                     prudently

connive                                     censure

lure                                           intimidate

verdict                                       prosperity

despondent                                 Choral Ode IV

barricade                                     havoc

appalled                                      awry

contrive                                     Episode IV

prevail                                         verge

devastate                                     Choral Ode V

vile                                                 quell

suffice                                             spurn

ply                                                 constraint

tempest

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[English II Honors]

Structure of the Greek Theater

[Top of the Page]

[English II Honors]

Reading Guide Questions for Antigone

As you begin this assignment, please be aware that you must ALWAYS be able to support your ideas with evidence from the text.

  The Prologue

1. What does Antigone want Ismene to do?
2. What is Ismene’s response?
3. What are your first impressions of Antigone and Ismene?  Be specific and be able to support your ideas with references to the text.
4. What are the dominant personality traits of each?
5. Which sister is the stronger? Support your opinion with specific references to the text.
6. Now, look at the other sister and present an argument that she is the stronger—again, support your opinion

Critical thinking questions:

7. What point is Sophocles trying to make with this opening scene?
8. Draw a conclusion from looking at your responses to questions 5 & 6.

  The Parados (First Ode)

1. What events of the previous day is the chorus relating?
2. Throughout the play the chorus will state moral lessons about things that please the gods and things that offend the gods. Find a line that states a moral lesson. (n.b. You will want to keep a running list of these as you read the play.)
3. What is the mood of the chorus as they begin this new day?

Challenge Question:

4. Find a line that suggests that the chorus does not hold Polyneices fully responsible for his actions.

Episode I

1. Read Creon’s lines 160-190 carefully. List the points in order that he makes in his first speech to the town elders.
2. What is his edict?
3. Why do you think he makes all of those “points” before he delivers his edict?
4. What is the reaction of the chorus leader to the edict?
5. What news does the guard bring?
6. Describe the personality of the guard.
7. How does the chorus leader react to the guard’s news? Draw a conclusion about the chorus leader.
8. How does Creon react to both the news of the guard and the response of the chorus leader? Draw a conclusion about Creon.
9. What does Creon accuse the guard of? What is his evidence?
10. What does Creon accuse the townspeople of? What is his evidence?

  Critical thinking questions:

11. Draw some conclusions about Creon.
12. What examples of irony do you find in this scene?
13. Find a line that might serve as a foreshadowing of events to come.
14. What lines strike you as being important/significant?  Why?

  Second Ode

1. List in order the things that make Man wonderful.
2. What one thing “limits” his power?
3. What moral lesson is stated by the chorus?
4. To which character(s) does this moral lesson apply?

  Episode II

1. Why has the guard returned?
2. What does he relate to Creon about Antigone and the body?
3. What is Antigone’s tone with Creon? Draw a conclusion about Antigone.
4. Read lines 439-512 carefully. What logical points do Antigone and Creon make in their argument?
5. Bottom line—What angers Creon the most about what Antigone has done? Draw a conclusion about Creon.
6. What does Creon accuse Ismene of? What is his evidence?
7. What does Ismene confess to?
8. What is Antigone’s reaction?
9. How does Antigone treat her sister in this scene? Draw a conclusion about Antigone.
10. Draw a conclusion about Ismene from this scene.

  Critical thinking questions:

11. Go back and look at your response to question #4. What point do you think Sophocles is trying to make by developing the argument in this way?
12. Go back and look at you impression of Ismeme in the Prologue. Have your views changed?  
13. Sophocles gives Ismene only 2 scenes in this play. What points is he trying to make through her character?
14. What do you think is the tragic flaw of Antigone?
15. What do you think is the tragic flaw of Creon?

Third Ode

1. In this ode, the chorus presents both a moral lesson and an observation on life—a “fact of life.” What are they?

Episode III

1. In the beginning of the scene, Creon asks Haemon, “Are you my loyal son, whatever I may do?” (line 619). Look very carefully at Haemon’s response (lines 620-621). How is he really answering the question? Draw a conclusion about Haemon.
2. What logical points does Creon make in lines 624-666?
3. What is the reaction of the chorus leader?

4. Examine Haemon’s first speech (lines 669-708).

1. What “psychological strategies” does he use in speaking with his father? What has he said? Not said?
2. Find examples of how Haemon gives Creon an “out”—a way to change his mind and still “save face.”
3. What two analogies does Haemon use to show the dangers of being stubborn?

5. What is the chorus leader’s reaction to Haemon’s points?
6. What is Creon’s response to the chorus leader? Draw a conclusion about Creon.
7. What does Haemon threaten to do if Creon kills Antigone?
8. How does Creon respond? Draw a conclusion.
9. Creon has changes the method of execution. What would his reasons be for his change? Draw a conclusion about Creon.

  Critical thinking questions:

10. Compare Creon’s argument with Antigone in Episode II and his argument with Haemon in this scene. Draw a conclusion about Creon’s level of logic in both arguments.

  Fourth Ode

1. What points does the chorus make about the power of love?
2. To which character(s) do these observations apply?

Commos

1. What is Antigone most concerned about as she faces death?
2. What is the chorus leader’s response?
3. How does Antigone react?
4. What does the chorus leader say is Antigone’s tragic flaw?

  Episode IV

1. What reason does Antigone now give for why she buried Polyneices?
2. Read lines 894-9—carefully. What is Antigone saying? What is her tone?
3. Read lines 901-904 carefully. Paraphrase these lines.

  Critical thinking questions:

4. Do you think that Antigone really believed that she would be put to death for what she did? Support your opinion.
5. Put yourself in Antigone’s place. What would you think might happen if Creon sentenced you to death? What might you expect to have happen?

  Fifth Ode

1. The chorus mentions another force against which man is powerless. What is it? This is the third “force” that the chorus has mentioned in the play. What are the other two?

  Episode V

1. Why has Teiresias come to see Creon?
2. What specific evidence does he offer to prove that the gods are angry with Creon?
3. How does Creon respond?
4. What does he accuse Teiresias of?
5. What is Teiresias’ prophecy?
6. Read lines 1055-1066 carefully. Draw a conclusion about Creon based on his statements to the chorus leader.

Critical thinking questions:

7. What is the significance of the fact that Teiresias is a blind prophet?
8. Compare and contrast episodes III and V. What points do you think Sophocles is trying to make by putting Haemon and Teiresias in the play?

  Sixth Ode

1. To which god is the chorus praying?
2. What is the tone or mood of the choruss?

  Exodos

1. What news does the messenger bring?
2. Who hears the news?
3. What is the result?
4. Highlight the lines in the text in which Creon recognizes his flaw and repents.
5. In his grief Creon prays for death. What is the chorus leader’s response?
6. Read lines 1284-1288 carefully. Paraphrase these lines.

  Critical thinking question:

7. Why do you think Antigone committed suicide? Draw a conclusion about her character.

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