Journal #12- Antigone

Anouilh create a tension between the contrasting idea of truth vs. lies when Creon talks about the story of Eteocles and Polynices.  When Creon starts out by revealing the true story of Polynices, Antigone immeditiately reacts by saying "That's a lie" (39). She immediately sets this border and concretes herself to the idea that her Uncle hates Polynices which is why he is attacking and blaming him. But as the story continues, and Eteocles gets revealed as a traitor too, Antigone begins to rethink her death and whether she really wants to die or not. The fact that the people of Thebes were told a lie about Eteocles and Polynices creates a tension between Antigone and Creon as the truth is revealed,  but it also creates a tension within Antigone herself in whether she should trust her uncle, or since he lied to the entire city of Thebes, he would probably be lying to her too just to keep is power and help his son. The idea of truth vs. lies creates a tension between Creon and Antigone because Creon is a King that should be trusted since what he says is what should be the truth, but he is revealing to Antigone a lie he created so that he can keep his power and loyalty and not show the entire city of Thebes that all his family members were traitors. This way, he makes sure that he reveals only Polynices was a traitor and represents himself as a great King that helped give Eteocles what he deserved as a great ex-king, and give Polynices what he deserved, which is rot without getting buried. Creon seems to be ashamed that he has to reveal this which creates this tension, but he does it in order that he keeps Antigone living for his son. Antigone on the other hand is somewhat shocked to hear this because she did not expect this story to be true at all. But a tension grows because she is not sure on whether this is a true story and its worth her while to listen to Creon and take back her actions, or what he is saying is something to keep Antigone alive so that he can have a future King when Haemon marries Antigone and they have a child.
Therefore the conflicting idea of truth vs. lies bombards the audience on what to expect happen next because we don't know who to trust or not to trust and what will happen or how will it change the characters thoughts or actions since a truth was revealed to them, but we are not sure if it is actually the truth or just a trick.

Journal #11- Antigone

The chorus started having a stronger and deeper role. In the beginning, it was just giving us an overview about what happened before, like a narrator, but now it had strong meaning behind what it says. The chorus brings in tragedy, and it is describing it as if talking to us directly and trying to make us feel what tragedy is like. I also feel like it is trying to give us a definition somehow to understand tragedy better, so that when we continue reading the play, we have a good idea of what tragedy is and be able to figure out what is tragic about the play. Anouilh uses a strong tone, that seems informative at some points, but also persuasive at other times. For example, when he says "Don't mistake me: I said "shout": I did not say groan, whimper, complain. That you cannot do." The chorus seems to persuade the audience to make sure they are doing what he is telling them to do. I think Anouilh does this using the chorus to somewhat show that he favors tragedy more, and wants the audience to receive the right type of interpretation of tragedies. The chorus seems to be saying that the play is tragic, and that we as readers should be able to understand that this is not a melodrama, but a tragedy. It is saying that once it starts, it continues on its own the tragedy begins to grow and keep going. So like how we started with Antigone revealing that she is the one that buried her brothers, and so the tragedy continues from there. Since the chorus also says that in tragedies, everyone's destiny is known, he is emphasizing that Antigone is a tragedy because Antigone knows her destiny and one that will end up in death because of her actions.

Journal #10- Antigone

Events before Nurse catches Antigone sneaking into the house:
-Antigone is sitting by herself, thinking that she is going to die. She will rise against her uncle, the King.
-Haemon is talking to Ismene, Antigone's sister. He is engaged to Antigone, but it happened in an off way. During a ball once, he was dancing with Ismene, but before the dance was over, he went and looked for Antigone and asked to marry her. But Haemene did not know that he will soon die because of this decision.
-Creon, is a King. When Oedipus was King, Creon was no more than a brother-in-law to the King, but now that he is the King, he is a strong King and does his job.
-Eurydice, Creon's wife, sits knitting all the time, until comes the time for her to die.
-The Messenger will soon come to announce Haemon's death. He has a premonition of catastrophe which is why he does not mingle with others.
-The guards sit and play cards, but are always on duty. They do anything they are told, even if it was the arresting of the King himself. They are afraid of their wives, but their children are afraid of them.
-When Oedipus died, his two sons, Eteocles and Polycines agreed that they share the throne of Thebes in alternate years. But when Eteocles refused to step down after his full year, a fight broke between him and his younger brother Polycines. They fought and ended up killing each other, in which Creon had to take over Thebes. Since Creon supported Eteocles, he gave him a proper and honorary burial, whereas Polycines body was ordered by Creon to rot without being buried and without anyone to go into mourning for him.

Anouilh explains the previous days events with the chorus in a normal tone as if they are just telling us a short summary about everything in the past. Although he explains them in short paragraphs, he gives the basics as to lead us towards what to expect. He does this is a way as to prepare us to what will happen. He is revealing the story in the beginning, but he is not revealing what will happen which makes the reader want to know how everything will untie. He also hits the main and important points in the beginning just to give us an overview as to what happened in the past in the kingdom, so we know the reason behind Antigone's want of burying her brother. This structure makes us interpret the characters differently as to who they are. With those little details, we tend to immediately have a thought about whether this character is bad or good. It also makes us also want to know a little more about the back story about each character and the reason as to why they did each thing, so it invokes us as readers to continue reading the book to know more about it. It also gives us a basic view as to what we expect the motivation of the characters to be, but it could be a way to play with our minds, and in the plot, have something else revealed that could shock us since we did not expect it to happen. For example, I see Ismene as this character that is jealous that Haemon chose Antigone rather than her, and is therefor trying to steal him away from her sister. I see Haemon as somewhat unconscious about the things going on around him, and just accepts what he is told. Creon seems like this person that is trying to gain as much power as he can since he is a king now.

Topic Sentence

The Mother is a highly demanding person when it comes to her desires, but a big part of her reaction towards what she does is due to her want of keeping her honor within her community. Her honor is represented throughout the novel by her decisions as well as the way she reacts with other characters.

Journal #9- Blood Wedding

Themes in Blood Wedding:
- The past
Looking back at the past is represented throughout the book and it brings in different ideas as to who the characters are and what their relationships are with other characters. The past of each character is represented differently and plays a role into how each character reacts depending on the view of their past. With the mother, the past is something that makes her angry and overprotective over her only son, and causes her to carry this feud her entire life. But on the contrast, when we look at Leonardo's wife, and she remembers her husband's past, it makes her upset to see that he still remembers his ex-wife.
-Desires
Desires of the characters is another big theme throughout the play. Each character has desires that are either to his or her own benefit or to the benefit of their family, yet there are those desires that they cannot fulfill. Like the bride, she desires to be with Leonardo throughout the play, yet the situation she is in does not help her fulfill her desires, until we see her run away with him. The mother's desires are those of wanting the best for herself as well as her son. Her choices throughout the book are to the benefit of her and her son.
-Control
There is this element and theme of control in the play within the characters, and this theme tends to play differently with the genders of the characters. The mother's control is one that she sees as best for her family. She controls her son because she wants to make sure that he will always have a good life in the future. She even controls what should happen and tends to be the one with the last word, since everything should go her way, and she expects everyone to respect her and her decisions. On the other hand, when we look at Leonardo's control, he seems as someone that is controlling his family and expecting him to listen to what he says and respect him, in order to achieve is dark desires. He is using the horse so much in order to  go and see the bride, yet when his mother-in-law hears him say he is using the horse, she immediately says it is fine, and he can kill it too. This shows that there is this force of control over his family, although not represented directly.

Journal #8- Blood Wedding

The set changes from this exciting and joyful wedding scene, to this dark, violent and intense forest scene, with woodcutters, the moon and death. With the new set, and the darkness of the play appears. There is a clear view of blood as a good way of revenge in a way, yet there is this fear on who will end up dying in the end, which we do know who it us, but in the first reading that was the feeling. There seems to be this strong feeling of revenge on Leonardo and the Bride for doing what they did, and so blood seems to be the only answer. Of course with the scene, Leonardo and the Bride show this affection between them, but it seems like not a very fun one, because they are both scared and know that it will not end up the way they wanted it to. With this scene, we can also see that the Bride is regretting what she did now, but is not convinced to let go of Leonardo yet. Overall, the set changes this atmosphere into a dark one, and creates an intense feeling of anger in the reader against the Bride and Leonardo as well as creates suspense for what is about to happen. 

Journal #7- Blood Wedding

The youth in the play represent the desires of young women at that time, but without them knowing of the circumstances or the effort in takes in the decision of getting married. Lorca tries to show the innocence of them as youths who don’t think of anything but their future life, believing it will be great and accomplished easily. But Lorca contrasts them to the Bride to show that once a girl grows up, she will face hard decisions. Everyone is innocent when they are young, but as they grow up and experience new things, they change and become aware of the circumstances and even become conflicted on what the right decisions is, which the girls do not understand yet, but the Bride is in that sort of situation. Lorca also uses the youth to bring in this excitement and represent the view on marriage as seen by society at that time. He seems to do this to show that since they were little, girls were taught that marriage is the road to take whether now or sometime in the future. He creates this desire that they have wanted, but uses the Bride to show the struggle and break the desire that those girls are dreaming about and push them into reality so that he moves them away from this dream that they have been taught for all their life, and understand the actual things that happen. Lorca uses the youth in the play to represent the theme of innocence that is portrayed and whether the characters are truly innocent or they all have dark desires within them. He also uses it to represent the theme of false hope and what is desired versus what can actually be achieved. 

Journal #6- Blood Wedding

I think the Bride is the one that is miserable in the entire play, because she is set to be married to someone who she somewhat loves, but is still conflicted on whether she loves him or Leonardo. She has this inner conflict between herself on doing what is right or what she wants. If she marries the bridegroom, she knows she will make everyone happy, but she won't be happy yet will force herself to be happy. But she also knows that if she runs away with Leonardo, she will make him and herself happy, yet make everyone else miserable. The Bride expresses her misery when she is with the maid. We see the first and most clear signs of her misery when the maid talks to her and is getting her ready for the wedding, but she does not seem to be in a good mood. Her misery was also clear when she was talking to Leonardo in Act II scene I. She expresses her misery with Leonardo in the form of constantly remembering her past. The Bride desires expressing her feelings towards the other characters, but she feels confined within this society where she should respect her parents desires and do as she is told. She does not want to make her family look bad in front of the rest of the society, therefore she hides her feelings, until she was pushed and somewhat forced to express her desires in the end with Leonardo, which she ended up regretting in the end. She was unsure of what she wants, and therefore she expressed her feeling in the wrong way and at the wrong time.

Journal #5 Blood Wedding

Lorca uses the father as an archetype of wanting the best for his daughter. During that time, a father saw a woman's life best with her husband. When she gets married, she makes her entire family happy because they can ensure that she will have a better life with her husband and kids. And so the father plays a man that thinks about only the best attributes of his daughter, so that he can increase her chances of getting married. He is stereotypical as to the man of the house that gives his order, yet wants the best for his own family, especially his daughter. When mother and the bridegroom arrived to his house, the bride did not come until she was ordered by her dad and this is an archetype because it shows the respect given to the dad and how she obeyed her dad until he ordered her to come in. The father is the one that gives the order and therefore should be respected. He even tells his daughter not to be serious because she will soon be her mother and this is an archetype of traditional roles of the father since he wants the best for his family and make sure that his daughter does what her husband's family wants her to do. Another archetype of the father is the idea that he wants his family and the bridegroom and his family to live next to each other and this is a very traditional archetype since families at that time wanted to always be close to each other and enjoy having a big family bonding with all the members together. I think Lorca rejects this archetype just because the bride did not really have a big say on whether she wants to marry someone or not, which created the big tragedy in the end. He probably thinks that the parents take on the role of being the ones with the final decision, but the person who is getting married should be the one that says yes or no, not the parents.

Journal #4- Blood Wedding

Knives: In Act I Scene I, knives are used as a way to represent the mother's anger. Whenever she talks about the knife, she becomes angry and dramatic which gives us as readers a background on why she reacted that way. The knives are a way of representing the split between the characters and the cause of their division as a society. The knife also foreshadows the death of the two characters that kill each other in the end. The idea of the knife is also represented as a small object that can cause big damage and so this represents the idea that every little thing can cause big damage.. in a way, just the bride's actions although they might be little in some aspects such as the way she thinks, it can actually cause big damage. The knife is also use as a symbol of trouble. When the bridegroom tells his mother that he wants to take the knife with him to the vineyard, she gets startled and gets angry and says, "I don't know how you dare to carry a knife with you!" (6). She clearly sees the knife not only as a threat to her son, but also a threat to others. After her husband's and son's death due to the knife, she does not trust it and has an immediate hate against it.
Flowers and plants: In Act I Scene I, quite a few references are made to different kinds of flowers. The mother is the one that uses the reference to the flowers throughout the Act and this shows her love towards her husband and son. When she talks about them, she says, "Two men who were like two geraniums" and "A beautiful man, with life like a flower in his mouth" (6,7). The mother represents them as two innocent characters that are beautiful and innocent as flowers whose lives were taken away. The idea of flowers representing them is like the innocence in them and their beautiful and nice nature in life. Even when mother talks to her neighbor about his soon to be wife, she says "I wish they were like two thistles that would prick any wagging tongue that touched them" (14). I believe that when Mother says that, she is referring to her son's future wife and her son's future mother in law. She says it this way because she does not anyone to be talking about her son's future wife in a bad way, therefore she wants them to prick anything said about them so that she keeps everyone's thoughts pure about her son's future wife and his future mother in law. But this also foreshadows to the Bride because the Bride will be someone that pricks the entire family and wounds them. She is the one that will cause the tragedy in the book. The tone of the passage when Mother says that line seems somewhat sad and depressed which could also be foreshadowing to the tragedy in the end. Even the idea of weeds foreshadows the depressed feeling and the tragedy of the death because weeds are things that ruin the nice and beautiful flowers and plants, and therefore it could represent the idea of the Bride being a week and her son a flower, where the Bride ruins and causes the death of her son.