Antigone – Lecture 3 (Family values and gender)

CENTRAL QUESTIONS:
1. Is Antigone the main character?
 Think about the fact that she is only an actor in the first half of the play. After
she has been sent to the cave and Haemon finds her dead, she disappears
entirely. Not even really mentioned.
 The second half of the play focuses of Creon and Haemon. What does this
suggest about Creon’s role in the play?
2. What does the fact that the play shifts to focus on Creon and Haemon suggest?
 Eurydice is the only female character on stage in second half of the play and
even then for only a short while.
 What does this, in combination with the shift of focus to the men, suggest
about gender in the play? Is there a gendered element – patriarchy,
feminism?
3. Should we read Antigone as a solely feminist character?

NOTES:
 Gender:
o Women are not viewed as having a place in the political sphere.
Ismene: “Think how much more terrible than these our own death
would be if we should go against Creon and do what he has forbidden!
We are only women, we cannot fight with men”
o Ismene goes on to state that she, as a woman, “must yield to those in
authority”. The implication here is that those in authority are men, e.g.
Creon as King, Tiresias as prophet, Choragos as leader of the Chorus.
o Politics is seen as the sole domain of men. The home is the domain of
women. It is men’s duty to make laws and run society. It is women’s
duty to take care of the home, the family and the rituals surrounding it.
Antigone: “I will bury the brother I love!”/ “But if I had left my
brother lying in death unburied, I should have suffered.”
o Creon also believes that women are lesser than men: “[G]uard them
well: For they are but women, and even brave men run when they
see Death coming.”
o This suggests that Creon believes Antigone and Ismene are not even as
brave as men – they will try to escape their death because they are too
scared to face it. Is this true of Antigone? Or Ismene? Remember
that she is willing to die alongside Antigone. We can therefore see
the importance of family ties in the play as well.
o Creon shows his sexism again when he says: “We keep the laws then,
and the lawmakers and no woman shall seduce us. If we must lose,
let’s lose to a man, at least! Is a woman stronger than we?”
o Antigone’s challenging of Creon’s law allows her to enter the political
sphere even though she is a woman. Creon views this as a threat to his
authority. If we relate this to contemporary society, we can see similar
power dynamics at play in the fact that women got the right to vote
long after men did. They were not seen as having a place in the
political space, but only in the domestic space. Even today, there are
many challenges for women in the political sphere.
o Creon continues to show contempt for Antigone, and for women, in
general in his argument with Haemon. He notes that his son is a fool
for arguing for the life of a woman.
o Chorus: “Yet not unpraised, not without a kind of honour, you walk at
last into the underworld; untouched by sickness, broken by no sword.
What woman has ever found your way to death?” – What can we
infer from this? It seems like a celebration of Antigone’s bravery
and loyalty to her family. She is going to die, but she is going to do
so with honour. Is Antigone right in her stubborn loyalty to her
family? Should she forego this loyalty in order to live?
o The Chorus continues: “Reverence is a virtue, but strength lives in
established law: that must prevail. You have made your choice, your
death is the doing of your conscious hand.” Is this a fair assessment
of Antigone’s actions? Does she really deserve to die?
 o When it comes to upholding the traditional role of women, it is Ismene
who does so rather than Antigone – obvious in Ismene’s refusal to help
Antigone bury Polynices because it goes against the law set by a man.

 Family values:
o We know already that both Antigone and Creon value family above
everything else. This is why Antigone risks her life to bury Polynices.
It is also why Creon demands obedience from Haemon as a son before
he demands it from him as a citizen.
o Creon is brought to the realisation that it his punishment of Antigone
that brings about the deaths of Haemon and Eurydice. We see his
change of heart when he hears Tiresias’ prophecy that he will lose his
son if he does not change his mind.
o The irony in his punishment of Antigone is that she disobeyed his
ruling because of her strong belief in family values. Should Creon
have taken this reasoning into account when he made his ruling? Is
he being hypocritical?
o Antigone is unrepentant over her actions: “And yet, as men’s hearts
know, I have done no wrong, I have not sinned before God.” She
believes that her actions are noble and just – her burial of Polynices is
a moral imperative.
o Ismene’s offer to die with Antigone is born out of love and loyalty for
her sister. She is also loyal to her family – wants to help bury
Polynices, but she is more afraid of breaking the law.
o She symbolically breaks Creon’s law through the “long-standing role
of women in mourning and burial”. Ismene uses her mourning
(Polynices and Antigone) to express her grief and defy the state law
that forbids “excessive mourning”. In offering to die with Antigone,
she shows Creon her willingness to mourn to such an extent as is
forbidden by the law. This is a more subtle way of challenging the
law of the state – and therefore Creon – but it is still an act of
rebellion.
o Given this interpretation of Ismene’s character and her actions, it
seems that we are too hasty to judge her as being weak. She is just as
brave as Antigone, but she shows this bravery in a subtler way, perhaps
a better way because it allows her to continue practicing a quiet
rebellion rather than directly challenging the King. Even small acts of
rebellion can lead to change.
o Sophocles suggests that family is sacred because of the fact that a dead
family member cannot be replaced. Family members play an integral
role in our lives – they share our experiences, pain, happiness. We
continue to love them both in life and after death.
o It is important to note that Antigone is only willing to break Creon’s
law for an immediate family member who cannot be replaced. She
would not break the law for a husband or son who could be replaced.
o Can we argue that the play revolves around not stubbornness, but
also figurative blindness? Blind loyalty, blindness to the
importance of listening to reason?