Antigonick Metaphors and Similes

Antigonick Metaphors and Similes

Tomb

Antigonick is sentenced to die by being entombed. It becomes the place of her and Haemon's death. The tomb is a metaphor for Kreon as he has become a tomb in which he must live with the deaths upon his soul for the rest of time.

Buried

Polyneikes' body lies rotting outside the gate of Thebes. Kreon has issued an edict that no one is to bury him under penalty of death. Polyneikes' rotting body is a metaphor for Kreon having deprived him of the ability to enter the afterlife which is a great horror. He's done so to stop the people from protesting against Thebes.

The Queen

Eurydike kills herself after her son Hameon has taken his life after seeing that Antigonick is dead. Her death is a metaphor for the reality that Kreon's edict has rippled out death, while not tearing apart the structure of his kingdom it has destroyed everyone that he has known and loved and left him with what he's desired the entire time: rule over Thebes.

Ismene

Ismene has come to believe that burying Polyneikes is not the right thing to do. But Antigonick has already performed the burial. This is a metaphor for the fact that Antigonick would never ask her sister to carry the burden of the cost of burying him. What she chooses to do is her burden and no one else's to hold up.

Haemon

Haemon pleads with his father to stop Antigonick from being killed, but he won't do it. He asks Kreon if he is the man he once stood in awe. This is a metaphor for the fact that Kreon was once a different man, but becoming king has changed him greatly.

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