Greek Drama Essay Pre-AP Ferguson
Directions: Choose ONE prompt. Spend time prewriting, using free writing, Venn diagramming, brainstorming, or mapping/clustering. Write a STRONG thesis sentence. Write a rough draft. Include at least two quotes from the play(s) to support your ideas. Type the final copy using 12-point font, Times New Roman. Include number of prompt you have chosen on sample title page.
The final copy should be 1 ¾ to 2 ½ double-spaced pages. Staple the prewriting and rough draft under the final copy. STAPLE the title page on top of the final typed copy. Follow the sample title page. Submit these guidelines with your final essay.
SAMPLE TITLE PAGE
TITLEBy
Name
Date
Class Period
Due Tuesday.
Essay Rubric Pre-AP/AP Writing Scale
Title Page ______/10 9=24-25
8=22-23
Final Paper ______/50 7=20-21
6=18-19
Pre-Writing ______/10 5=15-17
4=13-14
Rough Draft ______/10 3=12
with evidence of 2=11
revision 1=9-10 Points
Double the points for final essay
Total Essay ______/80
CHOOSE ONE OF THE FOLLOWING PROMPTS
1. Sometimes minor characters play seemingly small but very significant roles in drama. Name such a character in Antigone and explain why he/she was so important to the story. Use at least two quotes from the play to support your ideas. Cite correctly.
2. Sometimes minor characters play seemingly small but very significant roles in drama. Name such a character in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex and explain why he/she was so important to the story. Use at least two quotes from the play to support your ideas. Cite correctly.
3. How do both Oedipus Rex and Antigone support the Greek philosophy that man’s life was ruled by fate? Be sure to fully define fate and explain its role in each of the plays. Use specific passages from the text to support your statements.
4. Consider the events that happen to Antigone and Creon in Antigone. Were these events the results of fate, tragic flaws, or actions of the characters? Support your answers with specific examples.
5. What information is needed to fully understand Sophocles’ Antigone? How would you adequately prepare someone who is reading the play for the first time so that he might fully understand the story and its implications?
6. Discuss the human characteristic of pride as it pertained to at least three characters in Sophocles’ Antigone.
7. Discuss the human characteristic of pride as it pertained to at least three characters in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex.
8. If you were a Greek citizen living in Antigone’s time, how would you have gone about achieving happiness and wisdom in life?
9. Fully explain the Greek theater and how drama then differs from contemporary drama.
10. Why might Sophocles be considered possibly the greatest Greek playwright and Oedipus Rex possibly the greatest tragedy ever written?
11. What is to be learned by a modern-day teen from the old drama of the Greeks such as Antigone or Oedipus Rex?
12. Review the definition of tragedy and tragic hero. Explain how both Oedipus and Creon can correctly be called the tragic hero of the plays.
13. A number of references to blindness and sight/light and darkness are made in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. With what kinds of enlightenment and darkness is the play concerned? Specifically, why is it significant that Apollo, the sun god, is also a god of prophecy? Why is Teiresias, a prophet inspired by Apollo, presented as blind? What is the relationship between his blindness and that of Oedipus?
14. What does Sophocles teach through Oedipus Rex and Antigone about pride and ambition? How did these character traits work both for and against each of the play’s main characters? Apply lessons these Greek characters learned about pride and ambition to men of today.