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Who Is The Foil In Antigone

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In Antigone by Sophocles, each character, major or minor, plays an important role in the story. Each minor character can be put into one of three categories. These are a foil, a parallel, or a catalyst. The foil has an opposite personality of their main character counterpart, the parallel character emphasizes the theme in some way, and the catalyst is the one that starts trouble. One example of this is that Ismene, Antigone’s sister, is a foil for Antigone. Antigone is very brave while Ismene is cowardly. Antigone also stood up to Creon because she wanted Polyneices to have a proper burial, but Iseme wanted to obey Creon’s orders. Another important relationship between major and minor characters is how Haemon is a foil for his father, Creon. Haemon will serve as a foil for Creon’s character by calling attention to Creon’s unreasonableness, anger, and disrespect. …show more content…

Haemon says, “When men speak well, it good to learn from them” (Line 819). This shows that Haemon is a reasonable person and that Creon is being unreasonable to his own son. Haemon also points out to Creon that, “Your gaze makes citizens afraid—they can’t / say anything you would not like to hear” (Lines 783-784). Haemon is trying to show Creon that he is being unreasonable with everyone, including the citizens of Thebes but Creon won't listen. A foil in the end will reveal the bad characteristics of the main character and this is evident

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