How does the play begin?What impact does this technique or beginning have on the audience?

In her very first speech, Antigone only briefly alludes to her and her sister's circumstances, but a Greek audience would have quickly filled in the gaps created by this 'in media res' device (meaning that Sophocles begins the story 'in the middle of things'). Antigone believes that they are the final victims of the curse that follows all the members of Oedipus' family. Oedipus, Jocasta, Laius, Polyneices and Eteocles have all paid their price - and now they suffer with shame and dishonor. Sophocles, then, sets up Antigone as an 'Oedipal' hero - meaning that she is structurally the protagonist, but cursed with a tragic fate. The question, of course, is whether we as readers can determine her tragic flaw - that element of her character that will send her to her doom - and whether we can successfully identify her antagonist.