Literature > Antigone: Trace the theme of men’s and women’s proper roles through the play

Antigone is one of the greatest tragedies of the ancient Greek literature. It was written by Sophocles in the late 440s BC. As a dramatist and politician, he often compared old and new intellectual and moral standards, customs, and traditions that were affecting his audience. Many of his plays, including Oedipus the King, Electra, Oedipus in Colonus, and certainly Antigone, deal with questions that preoccupied the Athenian citizens of the time. Some of the major themes in the play Antigone include state versus family, the superiority of one god over another, and the role of men and women in ancient Athens.

In this essay I will discuss the question of men’s and women’s proper role in the Athenian democracy, and its manifestation in the tragedy, Antigone. At first we have to understand that in Athens, only the male citizens had the right to participate in the democratic institutions. In the play it is Creon who personifies this idea. He, as the king of Thebes has an undisputed authority over his people, and his decisions are to be obeyed by everyone. The men were the heads of the households, and were never questioned or doubted by other family members. This is especially true for women, whom had significantly less privileges than their husbands, brothers or fathers. Women were to be kept in the house to raise children and do the various chores around the house. By present day standards, their status was only a little above that of slaves. From their birth, girls were not expected to learn to read, nor to get any formal education. Unlike their male counterparts, girls were raised in protection to be kept as virgins for their future husbands. Marriages were usually arranged by their fathers, and as wives, they became subservient for the rest of their lives. They could not own property, and if their spouse died, women had to move into the house of their fathers’ brother who was in charge of finding them another husband.¹

In the light of these facts, we can understand why a simple girl, such as Antigone was so threatening in the world of male supremacy. She had to be killed if the status quo is to remain. Who was Antigone? She was the daughter of Oedipus, the King of Thebes who, according to an oracle, killed his father and married his mother. He had two daughters, Antigone and Ismene, and two sons, Eteocles and Polynices. When Oedipus had learnt that what the oracle had foreseen became reality, he blinded himself and left Thebes. He died in Colonus, with his daughter, Antigone by his side. After her father’s death, Antigone went back to Thebes, where she found a turbulence caused by her two brothers fighting for the throne. Eteocles was the one protecting his authority, and Polynices was the one attacking him and Thebes. When both of them died in the fighting, Creon became king, and this is where the story of Antigone begins.

There is a sharp contrast between the two sisters, Antigone and Ismene. When Antigone asks her sister to aid her in the burial of their brother Polynices, she refuses to help. She is a weak character, one of submission and obedience, one that represents the woman ideal of ancient Athens. She’s afraid of Creon, who, as a ruler of Thebes, forbids the proper burial of the traitor. Antigone tries to appeal to her sister saying that family honor requires them to rebel against Creon’s order, and that she has to aid her in giving the final tribute to Polynices. Ismene, in her answer, voices the customs of the times as to how a woman should act: “Remember we are women, we’re not born to contend with men. Then too, we’re underlings, ruled by much stronger hands, so we must submit in this, and things still worse” (pg. 660).

¹ The women of Athens.

Her answer is in accordance with what I earlier said about the role of the Athenian women. They not supposed to fight back and question the male authority. Ismene is too weak; she can’t defy the power of men, and apologizes to Antigone for her weakness. Antigone is her opposite. She embodies everything that the Athenian women were not supposed to be. She is brave, independent, and insubordinate. She goes to Polynices’s body, and mourns him the way she feels is right. When she gets caught by the guards, she is brought to Creon for questioning. He attacks her for her courageousness and defiance, and asks her if she knew about his order. She could take the easy way out by saying that no, she didn’t hear about the order, but instead she admits it all. Creon sentences her to a slow and excruciating death by walling her up alive in a tomb. Creon’s and his ages’ view is expressed in his statement when he orders the guard to take both Ismene and Antigone to the prison: “Stop wasting time. Take them in. From now on they will act like women. Tie them up, no more running loose; even the bravest will cut and run, once they see Death coming for their lives” (pg 673). What he’s really saying here is that women should always be kept under a close watch and never to be trusted. They are weak and cowardly, and unlike men, they’re afraid of dying for a higher cause.

He thinks that he can break Antigone’s pride and that she would plead for her life. But she never does. She is brave, just like a man who willingly faces what ever comes in his way. In the Greek patriarchal society this kind of behavior is practically unheard of before Antigone. Her defiance can be either praised or hated by the ancient Athenian audience. She represented the women’s figure as the opposite of what citizens were used to seeing. As Creon later explains to his son, Haemon, this kind of conduct would bring anarchy to the old world order. His solution is: “Therefore we must defend the men who live by the law, never let some woman triumph over us. Better to fall from power, if fall we must, at the hands of a man – never be rated inferior to a woman, never” (pg 676). If only once they let a woman vindicate her perceived rights, and let her get away with what she thinks is right, it will dishonor all men. The worst disgrace for a man is to be defeated by a woman. Haemon, as the fiancé of Antigone, and while he could easily voice his father’s opinion, he feels otherwise. Haemon seems to represent the changing world order that acknowledges women’s rights and opposes the tyrant. He is the voice of the people of Thebes and probably the audiences as well when he pleads to his father to let Antigone go.

“No woman, they say, ever deserved death less, and such a brutal death for such a glorious action. She, with her own dear brother lying in his blood – she couldn’t bear to leave him dead, unburied, food for the wild dogs or wheeling vultures. Death? She deserves a glowing crown of gold! So they say, and the rumor spreads in secret, darkly…” (pg 676).

But Creon is uncompromising, and he won’t revoke his order just yet. It takes an oracle, a blind old man named Tiresias to make him change his mind. He tells him about the birds he saw tearing the flash from each other as a sign of a plague that will come to Thebes. Creon finally comes to his senses, but it’s too late. His son killed himself when he found Antigone dead. Creon’s wife, Euridyce, when heard about the death of her son, stabbed herself as well. Euridyce appears only once in the drama when she asks the messengers about the bad news she heard. Her role seem to fit into the traditional female role of Athens, she doesn’t attacks or question her husband. The only solution or way out from her misery is death.

In this essay I compared the traditional view of the role of women in the ancient Athenian democracy with the view that Antigone represents through her actions. The two views are in direct contrast to each others. The traditional role prohibits women from actively participating in the affairs of the city state, and confined to be the bearer of her children. In Sophocles’s drama Antigone rebels against this convention, she acts as fearlessly as only a man would. Her actions will later bring about her death that we, as the audience, deeply regret.

Sources:

1. The women of Athens. 20 November. 2005 <http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/aegean/culture/womenofathens.html>

2. Knox and Thalmann. Ancient Greece and the Formation of the Western Mind. New York: Norton, 1984.

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