why do they even make us read shit like this. Like ok I know why they make us read it becuase it takes a higher level of literacy to even understand what the fuck is going on but my question is more like why me. Like yeah educating the masses is obviously important but clearly im completley fuckin incapable of being taught. I don't see why the councellors haven't banded together to form a coalition to put me in the special classes already. I mean I'm an art major; what the fuck do you even do? Cause I'm an art major and I'm still not even really fucking sure. Like yay can't wait to get covered in burnt stick silica and toxic paint thinner! No wonder I didn't get antigone, the oil paint is burning little meth holes in my brain. Oh thank god i finally nailed my painting of a paper bag, now I can go home and get an early start on my 6 hour charcoal piece of some fuckass apple that I'm gonna go to the store just to buy to study, becuase who the FUCK likes apples. They're like the most tasteless basic ass fruits of all time. They're not even sweet half the time they're just like fiberous and watery. It's the same with watermelon like genuinley what is the fucking point.
spoilers for antigone if you didn’t catch it live in 441 BC

If your mom dropped you on your soft spot when you were a baby, it might be hard to identify the theme of hubris in sophocles' work.

There’s my topic sentence by the way, and this is my transition:

hubris is shown by the masterful assholification of Antigone, Creon, and pretty much any other asswipe who makes an appearance in Thebes. Except Polyneices I guess, but his cardinal sin is being dead and not mattering.

It all starts when Creon decides there's any inherent meaning in what’s left of Polyneices being under a pile of dirt or not. This was his first mistake, because who gives a shit about a dusty corpse. Well to answer that question, Antigone does. Antigone’s first mistake, much like Creon’s, is also wasting what little brainpower her family shares on a pile of meat, left out as a little treat for the vultures. She also likes to attack her sister for no reason, which I assume was one of her hobbies since there’s nothing else to do in ancient Thebes besides starve and make clay pots probably.

Anyway, Antigone wastes her time on burying lunch meat, and Creon finds out. Since he made the completely useless law, he’s therefore obligated, by his own delusional inclinations, to actually care about some dead guy. Antigone gets caught on purpose, (assuming this is another hobby) and gets brought in before Creon.

Creon decides to pack up the boner circus in the court of kindergarten and give Antigone a chance to pretend she didn’t bury the idiot of relevance. Antigone, unfortunately, already used the brain cell for the day, and, to paraphrase, tells him he's a law-sucking nosewipe. Instead of actually being society's connotation of “being a man,” and not giving a shit that a 16 year old girl could call him unintelligent, he unlocks a new part of his sock-wad adjacent brain, and feels that his immeasurably huge ego is insulted. His next big move is killing antigone for no fucking reason.

Antigone’s next move is a tactical one: she kills herself. I’d continue the numbnuts shtick, but first of all we all know Creon and Antigone could stand to get some blood flowing in the dusty archive that is their brains, and second of all, I probably would’ve killed myself too.

Anyway, long story short, Antigone and Creon get smited by god, which is supposed to be a tragedy, but if you find yourself in a college class having to read through the absolute bullshit semantics that is ancient greek translated to english, you’d find that making out the lethal end in the stew of poetic garbage is like a little reward. Which is immediately snuffed out by the notion that you actually have to write about the book. It’s like opening the biggest present under the christmas tree, and you get a nice little bundle of hay or something, but unfortunately, you're not an 18th century peasant child so it means nothing to you. Similar, actually, to how the equally old and equally sad text means nothing to you. Because the translations were made specifically for people who can only write cursive sparknote reviews of Shakespeare plays.

Citations

My Rage and Hatred for Required College Level General Education

Poet, u/bananaboi455. 2023. "I'm Going To Jeff The Kill You"