Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Sarge's Antigone Summary


When I first saw this, I thought it was pronounced like anti-gone. So I thought it was about stain removal. Once that was cleared up, I laughed while reading this. You better laugh too. Or you'll be thrown into the TOMB of DESPAIR! --Amar

sgtpepper191

To start us off, here’s a little back story on Antigone: It was written by the Greek playwright and my main man, Sophocles, in 442 BC.  It is the third of the Theban plays (Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone), and is arguably one of the greatest plays in the history of literature…..and I’m about to poke fun at it.  We cool?  All right, let’s do this thing.

When we start out, there's these two girls named Antigone (an-TIG-uh-nee) and Ismene (is-MEE-nee). Why anyone would name their kids that is beyond me. But then again, their daddy wasn't exactly the sharpest sickle in the wheat field, if you get my drift. In the installments before this, he killed his dad and married his mom. Eww! Even if he didn’t know she was his mom, didn't he find it odd that she's like, thirty years older than him? But I digress.

It turns out that Antigone and Ismene's brothers are both killed in this mini-war thing that was cookin' before. Only Eteocles was fighting for Athens, and his brother Polyneices was fighting against Athens! OH, THE DRAMA! So Athens ended up winning the mini-war thing, and Eteocles got buried "with full and just and lawful honors due the dead" or whatever, and Polyneices got left out on King Creon's patio so he could watch the wild beasts have lunch on his body and the birds of the air poop on his carcass! Nice guy, that king.

For some strange reason, Antigone (let's just call her Annie, shall we?) sees something wrong with this. She's like, "No way, dudes! At least put my brother in the dirt, pretty please with a cherry on top?"

But evidently Creon doesn't like cherries, because he's like "NO! And anyone who tries to put this silly-named traitor in the dirt shall be tied to a bedpost and a servant shall tickle his foot, and Justin Bieber shall pop out and begin to sing if he should laugh!" Either that or buried underground, I can't seem to remember.

So, Annie wants to go put some dirt on her bro and take her chances with Justin Bieber, but she wants Ismene to come too. Except Ismene's all like, "No way, Jose! Justin Bieber sang at my birthday party that one year, and my eardrums shattered!"

Annie tries to persuade her to come anyway, because then the dead people will love them and everything will be all fine and peachy. Somehow, this infallible logic does not do the trick.

So then Annie goes off to sprinkle dirt on ol' Poly, spewing curses at Ismene all the while, and she totally doesn’t get caught! She's like a ninja or something! But then the guards go and tattle to Creon, who's like "WHAT?!?!?!?!" Yeah, he's pretty mad. So the guards go back and wash the dirt off of Poly, and sit there waiting for the ninja to come back and bury him again. And our friend Annie, predictably, goes and buries him again. Except this time she gets caught, and she's dragged back to the castle.

It goes like this:

Guard 1: Hey, Exalted Creon-person. We found the one who's buried Poly!
Creon: Really? Where is he? Behind the lowly woman-folk?
Guard 2: Nope, Annie here is the ninja we were looking for. We saw her putting dirt on him!
Creon: Doesn't that make her, like, not a ninja?
Guard 1: Well, yeah, but....we caught someone! Isn't that great?

Basically, no one believes Annie actually broke the law and buried her brother, and she might have gotten off, except she was so hung up on the "lowly-woman-folk" comment that she's all like, "Hades yes, I buried my brother! Just because he has a silly name and because he was trying to dethrone you and destroy everything Athens stands for is no reason to leave him for echidnas to swallow! Have you no respect for dead people?!?"

And then Creon goes, all slowly, like he's trying to explain that brown cows don't make chocolate milk, "Well, you see, the thing about dead people is....they're DEAD. Who cares if I dishonor them?"

And Annie goes, "I CARE, JERKFACE. SO BRING ON THE JUSTIN BIEBER, BECAUSE I'M GOING TO DIE FOR DEAD PEOPLE!" With Caps Lock and everything.

So then Creon takes a moment to decide exactly how he should kill her (turns out Justin Bieber was booked elsewhere for that day), when his son comes in! (Creon’s, not Justin Bieber’s.  That would be creepy.)

And his son (whose name is Haimon, and that makes me think of lunch meat. Mmmmm.) is basically like, "You're a loser and a creep because you're going to kill poor li'l Annie here because she sprinkled some dust over her bro! And the people of Athens think so too! So you betta reconsider, or else you're gonna find your butt dethroned!"

Did I mention that Haimon is actually engaged to Annie? Oh yeah. PLOT TWIST!

But that really doesn't make any difference, because Creon's like, "I am a superior kingly being! I don't have to listen to irritating youngsters like you, even if you are my child!"

So he's all pumped to put Annie underground, but then guards come in with Ismene! Turns out she warmed to the whole "put-dirt-on-Poly" idea after learning that Justin Bieber was booked, so she got herself dragged in and starts saying that Annie had a jolly good idea, and she wishes she could've helped. Except then Annie is all, "No way, Jose! I actually had to break a nail burying his butt, and you are NOT going to take credit for it! Because the dead people know who it was anyway! DEAD PEOPLE LUUURVE ME!!"

Well, no one could stand up to logic like that, so they let Ismene go and just chucked Annie into the TOMB of DESPAIR.

Cut back to the castle, or wherever it is that our buddy Creon lives. After chucking Annie in the TOMB of DESPAIR, he gets a visitor! The dude's name is Teiresias. (This is just a block party of strange names, isn't it?) Apparently, T-rizzle is some sort of prophet, and he just dropped by to let Creon know that because he chucked Annie in the TOMB of DESPAIR, his life is pretty much going to be horrible, forever. And also that Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is on TLC tonight.

So when he's watching Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Creon gets this brainwave. It sounds something like this: "Creon, you should totally let Annie out of the TOMB of DESPAIR!"

Whatever other unpleasant attributes Creon has, at least he's not one to ignore brainwaves. So he sends soldiers to let Annie out of the TOMB of DEPAIR, but it’s too late!  See, before Creon got his brainwave, Annie got one too! It said: "Annie, you should off yourself right now so Creon doesn't get the satisfaction of having offed you!"

Synonyms for killing notwithstanding, Annie decides that's a great idea, grabs a handy rope and offs herself. When word of that gets back to the palace, Haimon (Annie's lovey-dovey fiance, remember?) gets all depressed and offs himself because Annie offed herself. And then Haimon's mommy, Creon's wife, offs herself because Haimon offed himself.

So it's really a happy offing party, but by the time Creon gets the news that pretty much everyone took the initiative to kill themselves, people have wised up and taken all plausible suicide weapons out of Creon's reach. So he just sits there, watching Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and trying unsuccessfully to bump himself off with a crouton, and then he suddenly gets ANOTHER brainwave! This one says: "Creon, you're an idiot."

And he's like, "Dude, I know."

And that's the end of the play! *bows*

What should sarge summarize next?

3 comments:

  1. Antigone is one of my fav Greek tragedies.
    Mostly because I love her adherence to what she believed, even though she was the weaker one in the situation.
    Also, Creon's a jerkbomb. >:/

    Great summary!

    Peace,
    Rose

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  2. Thanks!

    I started a Much Ado About Nothing summary a while ago, so if people like this I could maybe send that in. Could I just send that directly here, or would it have to get rejected from SL first, Amar?

    ~sgtpepper191

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  3. Whichever one you want. :) If you send it here, then I can have more to post. :)

    ReplyDelete