Antigone is tragedy written by the Greek playwright Sophocles written in or before 441 BC. It is the third of the three Theban plays: Oedipus the King, Oedipus of Colonus, and Antigone. Although Aristotle wrote the "Poetics" in 350 B.C. almost 100 years after Antigone was written, his ideas and thoughts on tragedy were implied throughout the play.
To Aristotle, the plot is the soul of tragedy hence; it is the most important part. A good plot must show the causal relationship of events and not episodic in which the acts succeed one another without probable or necessary sequence. I can say this is evident in Antigone as the events are caused by earlier incidents and does not primarily depend on the protagonist’s, King Creon, character or personality. Antigone’s sentence to death is caused by her violation of the king’s decree of refusing his brother, Polynieces,of a proper or honorable burial. Haemon’s suicide is caused by the death of his fiancée, and so is Queen Eurdice’s suicide is caused by her witnessing the death of her son.
Another characteristic of the plot according to Aristotle is that the action must take place in only one definite place and time. In Antigone, the entire action happened in Thebes just after the Theban civil war where Polynieces and Etiocles, two brothers leading opposite sides have both been killed in battle. A tragedy must also be completed in a single revolution of the sun. This aspect of the plot is also evident in Antigone as the entire story may have happened in probably a day or two.
A plot to Aristotle must also present a peripeteia or reversal of events and anagnorisis or moment of recognition by the hero about what has happened. In Creon’s case, the peripeteia is when he decides to change his decree against Polyneices and Antigone, though too late. The anagnorisis is when Creon takes responsibility for what happened. Antigone on the other hand suffers a change in her condition, but she never reverses herself. The...