Antigone: A summary of life

Plot Overview The Chorus introduces the players. Antigone is the girl who will rise up alone and die young. Haemon, Antigone's dashing fiancé, chats with Ismene, her beautiful sister. Though one would have expected Haemon to go for Ismene, he inexplicably proposed to Antigone on the night of a ball. Creon is king of Thebes, bound to the duties of rule. Next to the sisters' sits the Nurse and Queen Eurydice. Eurydice will knit until …

…that those fated to die have died and will be forgotten and that a "melancholy wave of peace" has now fallen upon Thebes. The Guards make their final, ironic appearance, resuming their card-game from the beginning of the play. As the Chorus remarks, they remain untouched by the tragedy. The indifferent members of the rank-and-file would thus stand in an almost edifying contrast to the audience that has undergone, or should have undergone, its catharsis.