Read the poem. Answer the questions on the side. If you cannot fit your answers, you may use a separate sheet of paper. These questions and the Short Answer on the back are a quiz grade.
On Reading Antigone to my Daughter
by Ruth Knafo Setton
1 “A lot like you,” I say.
For once she doesn’t
argue, asks, “Why is it wrong What do you think the relationship is
to cover her brother’s body between the mother and daughter?
with dust?” I search my memory- Note: she uses the words “for once.”
school, classroom after dry
classroom, curled corners, frogs
undissected in the lab.
2 The cursed House of Atreus, What does the diction of “bigtime”
a family that screwed tell us about the speaker’s feelings?
up bigtime, and that’s paying
for it still. “See sweetie, Infer: Did the daughter do
once you get the gods mad, something to“get the gods mad”?
if it takes forever,
they’ll get you.”
3 I’m reading Creon’s mad bluster Judge whether you think that “mad
and Haemon’s sweet reason bluster” is an accurate depiction of
but seeing her think across the page, Creon’s behavior.
eyes wide. At four she told me,
“I want to be a window, so I can see How do these lines characterize the
everything.” At five she said, “I want daughter?
to be bad to know how it feels.”
4 I almost covered you with dust, What event in Antigone is the poet
little girl, when you lay, purple-eyed alluding to?
and drug-smeared, in a near coma.
A million Creons could have come,
a billion, and told me, Leave her there Why is dealing with a drug-addicted
to die, and I’d have kicked daughter similar to dealing with a
through clouds of pages, traitorous brother (Polyneices)?
She is mine, and she is going to live!
5 She leans against me while I read,
nose and mouth pressed against my shoulder
and hair, absorbing me with the story.
Willful girl, you've tasted death, What does the word “willful”
you will do the same suggest about the daughter? Which
when it comes time. character in Antigone is willful?
Why does the poet use the word “willful” instead of “stubborn”?