Irony of Macbeth, and Antigone Essay Example

of these sentences is to highlight the irony within the witches' prophecies. While the witches' implied meaning was that Macbeth would become king, Macbeth interpreted this as a promise of happiness as king, leading to his visions of himself on the throne. However, Macbeth soon realizes that his assumption was wrong as he becomes an unhappy and burdened king due to the guilt from Duncan's murder, along with Banquo's. The witches bear responsibility for this unsettling twist of fate. This irony instills doubt in the audience's perception of the witches, creating an underlying fear throughout the play as they witness the witches' relentless and malevolent actions disrupting peace and order in Scotland.

In Act V, Scene I, Lady Macbeth developed a fear of the dark and began sleepwalking and talking to herself. While wandering the castle one night, she became fixated on trying to wash the blood off her hands that she still felt and smelled, which marked a significant contrast to her behavior in Act II, Scene ii.

In the play, Lady Macbeth exclaimed, "Out, damned spot! Out, I say!" and also wondered, "Will these hands never be clean?" This is an ironic situation as earlier in the play Lady Macbeth disregarded Macbeth's concerns without much consideration, and one would not expect her to think of them again. In Antigone 1, a simple example of verbal irony occurs when Antigone refers to Creon as "the worthy Creon" in the prologue, despite actually meaning the opposite.

In some translations, a small detail of dramatic irony may go unnoticed. When Creon is informed that Polyneices has been buried and asks, "Who has

done this?", he uses the masculine form of the Greek pronoun for "who". Some translations highlight the gender by having him inquire, "What man has done this?". However, as we are aware and he soon discovers, the culprit was not a man. It is possible that this is a case of situational irony where, as Teiresias points out, Creon has imprisoned a living person and left a deceased one unburied.

The text suggests that there are two types of irony present in the story of Creon. It could be seen as situational irony when Creon listens to the chorus's advice and decides to free Antigone and bury Polyneices. However, he does so in reverse order, possibly hoping to surprise Antigone when he lets her out. Unfortunately, this plan backfires, as she ends up being left alone in the tomb for so long that she loses hope and takes her own life.

Additionally, there is dramatic irony when Creon returns from the tomb with the bodies of Antigone and Haemon. He expresses that he has suffered enough tragedy, only to then find out about the death of his wife, an unexpected twist in the story.