Fate versus free will is a dominant theme of Sophocles’s Antigone. Although Antigone makes a conscious choice to risk her life b
y burying her brother, Sophocles hints that her life is the result of a predetermined destiny shaped by her family’s past. Which line in this excerpt from Antigone reflects Antigone’s helplessness with regard to her fate and her family’s past? ANTIGONE: Alack, alack! Ye mock me. Is it meet Thus to insult me living, to my face? Cease, by our country's altars I entreat, Ye lordly rulers of a lordly race. O fount of Dirce, wood-embowered plain Where Theban chariots to victory speed, Mark ye the cruel laws that now have wrought my bane, The friends who show no pity in my need! O monstrous doom, Within a rock-built prison sepulchered, To fade and wither in a living tomb, And alien midst the living and the dead. CHORUS: In thy boldness over-rash Madly thou thy foot didst dash 'Gainst high Justice' altar stair. Thou a father's guilt dost bear. Reset Next Theme: Mastery Test
