Antigone Journal # 4

"And they are all at peace. All those who were meant to die have died: those who believed one thing, those who believed the contrary thing, and even those who believed nothing at all, yet were caught up in the web without knowing why. All dead: stiff, useless, rotting. And those who have survived will now begin quietly to forget the dead: they won't remember who was who or which was which, It is all over. Antigone is calm tonight, and we shall never know the name of the fever that consumed her. She has played her part"(53).

This passage is located at the very end of the play. This passage is used in a kind of conclusion manner to rap everything up and make the last point before the play ends completely.
"And they are all at peace" Shows that all people have found their place and can finally rest. This is shown through all of the mentions of the characters that have died. When they die it means that they can rest in peace which is where the reference comes from. When "all those who were meant to die have died" it refers to how fate is used in the book. All things are inevitable, the people who die will die and the people who are meant to live will live. All of it is inevitable, both life and death are. I find this interesting that they are both contradictory and yet they happen kind of like how in the next part where the author mentions that the people who died believed one thing and the other the contrary thing, it also applies to the death and life. Antigone wanting to die versus everyone else not wanting her to die, they connect to each other and contradict each other at the same time. It shows the views of each person in the book, the people who were not even around even directly involved were somehow tied shown. The people who believed to die Antigone, the people who did not believe, Haemon and the one who did not believe at all and did nothing but die right after the fact. This also connects to the next part when the author uses "were caught up in the web without knowing why" the web being a symbol that stands for the connections of each person to one another, and the bond that cannot really be understood or known why it is there. They could have been connected by fate that this was all supposed to happen. They were supposed to die to become meaningless, to become stiff and useless to the world, to come to an end. The use of descriptive words when describing how they become meaningless describes how each person will eventually fall to their fate. "And those who have survived will now begin quietly to forget the dead: they won't remember who was who or which was which, It is all over" this repetition of forgetfulness is used to put emphasis on the people who are living that want to forget the people who have died. I think this could be that multiple people have died and so they may get confused and may try to cover that up and try to forget it because it was in the past and they just want forget the terrible memories because they must continue to live. When the author uses "Antigone calm tonight" it means that she has finally gotten what she had wanted and does not have to worry about loneliness anymore when it comes to being in the cave and in life. She had people who loved and cared about her and now she may rest in peace now that her worry is all over with. "She has played her part" I think the author uses this to describe how Antigone connected everyone together and was the tier of their fates.
I wonder what "we shall never know the name of the fever that consumed her" means. I think it is talking about the craziness that has come over her when she wants to die and keeps admitting it. The confusion is she really does not want to die, which could have been why they said this quote.