Background Information (page 3)

Greek Drama--Introduction--The Myth



A Tragic Myth: The House of Thebes 

The basic plot of Antigone is part of a long myth that was as familiar to Athenian audiences as stories about the Pilgrims are to Americans today. A MYTH is an old story, rooted in a particular society, that explains a belief, a ritual, or some mysterious aspect of nature. Many myths also try to explain human suffering. In many cases, the myths explain our sufferings in terms of the workings of the gods—of fates that cannot be avoided, of curses that haunt generation after generation.  The following story is the myth the Athenians knew and the one that we must also know if we are to understand Antigone.

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