Antigone
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50 free Antigone trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Antigone is among the oldest plays still read in schools, and it has not lost its edge. A princess decides that a ruler's order is wrong and acts on it, and Sophocles lets both sides argue their case so well that readers have been taking sides ever since. This quiz follows the tragedy from the prologue and the first ode through to the last lines of the chorus. It asks who does what and why, tests the best-known speeches and exchanges, and steps back for a few questions on the family's history with Oedipus, on Greek theatre, and on the writers who have reworked the story. It suits students revising for a test or an essay, teachers after a quick check on the reading, and anyone who met the play once and wants to see how much of it stayed.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01A South African play about two cellmates rehearsing Antigone is set in a prison modelled on which notorious jail?
Robben Island
Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was held, is the clear model for the unnamed prison in The Island. One inmate plays Antigone and the other plays Creon before their fellow prisoners.
Q 02Which queen of Thebes was both mother and grandmother to Antigone, having unknowingly married her own son?
Jocasta
Jocasta bore Oedipus to King Laius, and years later the two married with neither knowing who the other was. Their four children included Antigone and the brothers whose war sets the play in motion.
Q 03How does Antigone die inside the rocky vault where Creon has had her sealed alive in Sophocles' play?
She hangs herself
She hangs herself with a noose of fine linen, so Creon's change of heart comes too late. He reaches the tomb to find his son clinging to her body.
Q 04How is Creon, the new king of Thebes, related to Antigone in the tragedy by Sophocles?
Her uncle
Her uncle Creon is her mother's brother, and he took the throne only because both male heirs had just died. He is also due to become her father-in-law.
Q 05How do the two brothers of Antigone die in the war for the throne of Thebes?
They kill each other
They kill each other on the same day, leaving no male heir to rule. Creon then honours the brother who defended the city and shames the one who attacked it.
Q 06What becomes of Creon himself at the very end of Antigone, the tragedy by Sophocles?
He lives on in grief
He lives on in grief, still king but begging to be led away as 'a rash, foolish man'. His wife and son are both dead, and he blames no one but himself.
Q 07Which cautious sister refuses to help Antigone bury their brother in the opening scene of Sophocles' play?
Ismene
Ismene urges obedience to the king, yet once the crime is discovered she tries to claim a share of the guilt. Her sister refuses to let her.
Q 08Who performed the role of Antigone and every other female part when Sophocles first staged the play in Athens?
Men wearing masks
Men wearing masks played every part, since the Athenian stage had no actresses. Swapping a mask let one performer return as a completely different character.
Q 09Which son of Creon is engaged to marry Antigone and begs his father to spare her life?
Haemon
Haemon begins respectfully, but the quarrel ends with him storming out and vowing his father will never see him again. He is next found in her tomb.
Q 10Creon vows in Sophocles' Antigone that as long as he lives he will never be ruled by whom?
A woman
A woman, he insists: 'While I live, no woman shall rule me.' Creon treats Antigone's defiance as a threat to male authority as much as a breach of his law.
Q 11Which blind prophet warns Creon in Antigone that the gods are refusing every sacrifice from Thebes?
Tiresias
Tiresias tells the king that the city's altars are polluted by scraps of the unburied corpse. The same seer delivers the terrible truth in Oedipus Rex.
Q 12What is the name of Creon's wife, who kills herself at the end of Antigone after cursing her husband?
Eurydice
Eurydice appears only briefly, near the end of the play. A messenger reports that she died at the household altar, leaving Creon entirely alone.
Q 13Which brother of Antigone does Creon bury with full honours for dying in defence of Thebes?
Eteocles
Eteocles held the throne and died defending it, so Creon treats him as a patriot. The edict that follows denies the same rites to the brother who attacked.
Q 21Which punishment does Creon's edict first threaten for anyone who buries Polynices in Antigone?
Public stoning
Public stoning is the penalty Antigone reports to her sister in the opening scene. Creon later switches her own sentence to being sealed in a cave.
Q 22Which motive does Creon in Antigone suspect behind both the forbidden burial and the seer's later warning?
Bribery
Bribery is his first thought each time: he calls money the worst evil ever to circulate among men. He accuses his own men of taking pay from rebels and the seer of selling his prophecies.
Q 23In his first speech as king in Antigone, Creon pictures the state as what, carrying its people to safety?
A ship
Q 14What does Antigone sprinkle over the corpse of Polynices to give him a symbolic burial in Sophocles' play?
Dry dust
Dry dust is all she can manage alone, yet a light covering is enough to complete the rite. She is caught only when she comes back to pour offerings over the body.
Q 15Which nervous character brings Creon the news that someone has secretly buried Polynices in Antigone?
A sentry
A sentry posted over the corpse arrives stammering excuses, and Creon threatens to execute him unless he finds the culprit. He soon returns with Antigone as his prisoner.
Q 16The famous 'Ode to Man' in Antigone praises human skill but names which one thing people cannot escape?
Death
Death alone defeats a creature who has crossed the oceans, tamed animals and found cures for sickness. The ode opens by calling man the greatest of the world's many wonders.
Q 17Antigone tells Creon that no mortal decree can override the laws of heaven, which she describes as what?
Unwritten
Unwritten and unfailing, she calls them: laws that are 'not of today or yesterday' and whose origin no one knows. Her speech sets them above anything a king can proclaim.
Q 18Which reason does the sister of Antigone give for refusing to defy Creon and bury Polynices?
They are only women
They are only women, she argues, not made to fight against men and ruled by those who are stronger. Antigone replies that she would no longer welcome her help even if it were offered.
Q 19The chorus that comments on the action in Sophocles' Antigone is made up of which group?
City elders
City elders of Thebes form the chorus, old men summoned by Creon to back his rule. They begin by deferring to him and end by urging him to give way.
Q 20From which rival Greek city did Polynices march an army against Thebes before Antigone begins?
Argos
Argos gave the exiled prince a royal bride and an army to win back his throne. The chorus's entrance song celebrates that army's headlong flight.
A ship is his image: only while the country stays on course, he says, can anyone aboard make true friends. So he ranks loyalty to the city above every personal tie.
Q 24Creon's son warns him in Antigone that what survives a winter flood by bending rather than standing stiff?
Trees
Trees that bend keep every twig, he says, while the rigid ones are torn out by the roots. He adds a sailor who never slackens his sail and ends up capsized.
Q 25Which creatures does the blind prophet in Antigone hear screaming and tearing at each other in a frenzy?
Birds
Birds are how the seer reads the future, and their savage noise tells him the gods are angry. They have been feeding on the corpse Creon left unburied.
Q 26According to the closing lines of the chorus in Sophocles' Antigone, what is the greatest part of happiness?
Wisdom
Wisdom comes first, the chorus sings, and the proud learn it only in old age after heavy blows. Creon is being led into the palace as they say it.
Q 27Which tragedian wrote Seven Against Thebes, the play about the brothers' war that Antigone picks up from?
Aeschylus
Aeschylus's play now closes with Antigone herself defying a ban on the burial. Scholars think that scene was added after his lifetime to match Sophocles.
Q 28Which term from Aristotle, often translated 'tragic flaw', names the fatal error of a hero like Creon in Antigone?
Hamartia
Hamartia comes from a Greek verb meaning 'to miss the mark', so some critics read it as an honest mistake and not a moral failing.
Q 29What does Creon's son try to do with his sword in the tomb of Antigone before turning it on himself?
Stab his father
He tries to stab his father, first spitting in his face without a word. Creon dodges the blow, and the young man leans on the blade himself.
Q 30Antigone defends herself to Creon by saying that which god never proclaimed his ban on the burial?
Zeus
Zeus did not issue that edict, she says, and neither did the Justice who lives with the gods below. She admits the deed at once and makes no attempt to deny it.