Blog #7

[timshel]

Part 1:
Antigone and Creon both poses the ability to be perceived as the tragic hero of the play.  Creon was born into royalty and took the place at the crown.  The play opens while he is in the midsts of this transition period.  In his attempt to gain admiration and interest from the public, he threatens and then destroys his private relationships.  "I'm not the man, not now: she is the man if this victory goes to her and she goes free.  Never! Sister's child or closer in blood...she'll never escape."(541)  The threat against his masculinity and pride is enough for him to lose his son, Antigone and his wife forever. Although Creon may not seem worthy of concern, the situation that he endures in the end can have a sympathetic affect on the reader or viewer of the play.  Even though his tragedy was inflicted upon himself, he couldn't have known the consequences.  Antigone is also born into royalty, as her father used to be the king.  Her flaw however it a bit more up for interpretation.  Her error could be going against Creon's orders and disobeying the law, however, in her opinion she was only doing the right thing.  Some may peg her flaw as being overly prideful but in her pride she expected death, so this is hard to argue as her flaw.  "And even if I die in the act, that death will be a glory. I'll lie with the one I love and loved by him." (86)  Her eventual death leads to the death of two other people.  Antigone is the protagonist of the story, therefore it is easy to sympathize her case and her argument towards the burial of her brother.  Simply changing the title of the play could change the view point of the play for me, without changing any of the words.  It would create influence on Creon's role and thus might change readers or viewers opinion of him.  For the story to remain affective, in my opinion it could not be called Creon. 

Part 2:
About.com says that an extended metaphor is "a comparison between two unlike things that continues throughout a series of sentences in a paragraph or in lines in a poem."  
There are many extended metaphors that last many sentences in the reading Obasan.  "Grief has roamed like a highwayman down the channels of her body with its dynamite and its weapons blowing up every moment of relief that tried to make its way down the road.  It grew rich off the unburied corpses inside her body." (4) Joy Kogawa's use of extended metaphors helps relay the grief that Obasan has been living with for many years.  This particular quote draws imagines surrounding the trials Obasan has faced in her life and the discomfort they have left her with.