Fate versus free will is a dominant theme of Sophocles’s Antigone. Although Antigone makes a conscious choice to risk her life by burying her brother, Sophocles hints that her life is the result of a predetermined destiny shaped by her family’s past. Which line in this excerpt from Antigone reflects Antigone’s helplessness with regard to her fate and her family’s past?
ANTIGONE:
Alack, alack! Ye mock me. Is it meet
Thus to insult me living, to my face?
Cease, by our country's altars I entreat,
Ye lordly rulers of a lordly race.
O fount of Dirce, wood-embowered plain
Where Theban chariots to victory speed,
Mark ye the cruel laws that now have wrought my bane,
The friends who show no pity in my need!
O monstrous doom,
Within a rock-built prison sepulchered,
To fade and wither in a living tomb,
And alien midst the living and the dead.

CHORUS:
In thy boldness over-rash
Madly thou thy foot didst dash
'Gainst high Justice' altar stair.
Thou a father's guilt dost bear.

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The right answer is 4) "Thou a father's guild dost bear."

Explanation: Just to elaborate a little on the answer, it can be added that, in this line, the chorus is reminding Antigone that she went too far and was very daring, but, by doing so, she found the cornerstone of justice, and fell ("thou thy foot didst dash"). They conclude by saying that perhaps she is paying for his father's pain, which is the line that reflects her helplessness with regard to her fate and her family’s past. Antigone's father, Oedipus, had put a course on her two brothers, Eteocles and Polynices, and, as a result of it, they were tragically destined to die in battle at each other's hands.

The last line Thou a father's guild dost bear.

Thou a father's guilt dost bear.

Explanation:

This is the line that best expresses the idea that Antigone is helpless with regard to her fate and her family's past. In these lines, Antigone reflects on the difficulty of her situation. We learn how alone she is, and what a struggle it is to act according to the ideas that motivate her. No one pities her and no one is helping her. The Chorus explains this by referring to Antigone's boldness and rash decisions. However, it also argues that Antigone's burden is one that she has to carry because she is the daughter of her father, and she carries his guilt.