Hannah's English Blog

Though the beginning of Antigone focuses on the conflict between Ismene and Antigone as well as the blame that Creon places on them both, the majority of the play doesn't refer to Ismene at all. She seems to disappear after Creon tries to punish them both and is ignored in every other event that occurs after it. Why did they not talk to Ismene for most of the play? What even happened to her? I think that though the writer wanted to keep the focus on Antigone/show how she betrayed her family, he should have shown what happened to her to make the story a bit more interesting.

Though Antigone is the main character and namesake of the play Antigone , I don't think that she is necessarily one of the best people to have as the main focus of a novel. In the beginning, she seems kind of selfish in the way that she (seems to) only wants to bury Polyneices by herself so that she can take all the credit/people will idolize her for doing the right thing. Maybe I'm just pessimistic or in a bad mood, but I think Antigone is quite selfish and doesn't really think about the consequences of her actions. On the other hand, she does fight to do what she believes in despite her social status which I can respect. I wish that the play focused a little more on the changes (if there were any) to the lower status of women at the time, but Creon's words toward Antigone do show the topic pretty clearly.

I agree with Lewis' views about reading and why we enjoy it so much, but there are some thoughts that make me slightly disagree. I love to read on my own time when I can choose a book that sounds interesting to me. Though I enjoy reading, reading assigned books that don't interest me and feel like a chore to read. This makes me not enjoy reading as much, and in turn will make me less likely to pick up a book in my spare time. I used to read so many books on my own and I loved it, but now I feel like I would rather be doing something else by the time we finish a book for class and I have time to read a book on my own.

Lewis Carroll wrote Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass  so it doesn't surprise me that he would write a book about how to read literature. Though his novels are confusing, the story is worth the rereading and slight confusion. Most old books tell an interesting story, but sometimes the old language and confusing writing makes it difficult and makes me not want to read it. A lot of novels that we read today, mainly in school, that were written long ago don't make much sense, so his advice on how to properly read and learn from a novel help will help me in the future with comprehension and essays. Something about this article that surprised me was the modern tone Carroll took when writing (at least the excerpts in the article)  How to Learn, which made it more interesting and engaging to read.