Reading Quiz

Questions

1. How does Ismene react when Antigone asks her to help give Polyneices a proper burial?
2. When Ismene offers to keep Antigone's plans a secret, what does Antigone tell her?
3. How, exactly, did Polyneices and Eteocles die?
4. Why does Creon believe Polyneices doesn't deserve to be buried?
5. Why did it take the messenger to Creon such a long time to arrive?
6. Although the messenger insists that he doesn't know who buried the body, what does Creon believe happened?
7. According to what he tells Creon, what did the messenger guard do when he got back to the other guards, after speaking with Creon the first time?
8. What does Creon do with the messenger guard, after he has brought in Antigone?
9. What does Ismene say when Creon asks if she took part in the burial?
10. How does Antigone respond to what Ismene says (asked in the question above)?
11. Who was Antigone supposed to marry?
12. Why doesn't Creon feel bad about breaking up the wedding?
13. How does Haemon initially respond to the marriage being called off, right after he appears in the scene?
14. What is Creon's attitude toward the fact that the person who defied him, Antigone, is a woman?
15. After hearing Creon explain the situation, what does Haemon suggest Creon do?
16. What method does Creon propose for killing Antigone?
17. While singing with the Chorus, Antigone claims that, since she is going to die, she will marry what?
18. What does Antigone say she would have done if, instead of her brother, the unburied body had been that of her husband or child?
19. What does Tiresias tell Creon?
20. Once Tiresias has left, what does Creon decide to do?
21. Where is Antigone found dead?
22. What did Haemon try to do, just before killing himself?
23. What did the messenger and Creon do with Polynieces's body?
24. What happens to Eurydice?
25. What do Creon's men help him do at the very end of the play?

Answers

1. She says she won't defy Creon like that; her family has suffered enough already without her breaking the law.
2. That she'll hate her even more if she keeps quiet about it
3. They stabbed each other with their spears.
4. Because he believes Polyneices wanted to destroy the city and enslave the people; he had bad intentions for Thebes
5. He kept debating whether to turn around and go home, afraid that Creon would unjustly punish him for the bad news he was bringing.
6. That this guard and the others took a bribe to bury it for someone else
7. They uncovered the body and waited, and then caught Antigone.
8. He lets him leave.
9. She says she did help.
10. She says that Ismene is lying and didn't take part in the burial.
11. Creon's son, Haemon
12. Because there are other women Haemon could marry, and Antigone is evil
13. He says he's loyal to his father.
14. He refuses to be defeated by a woman; it makes him even angrier about it.
15. Haemon suggests Creon reconsider, since public sentiment is on Antigone's side.
16. Shutting her in a cave, while still alive
17. The river Akheron, in the underworld
18. She wouldn't have defied the law and faced death, because she could have gotten another husband and had more children, but her family is dying out.
19. He tells Creon that Creon is wrong and will bring ruin on himself if he doesn't reconsider.
20. Creon decides to follow his advice – to free Antigone and bury her brother.
21. In the tomb Creon made for her
22. He tried to strike a blow at his father, Creon, with his sword, but missed.
23. They found it and buried it.
24. She kills herself with a knife upon learning of her son's death.
25. They help lead him off stage.