Ismene and Antigone are different in many aspects. Ismene is beautiful while Antigone is plain. Antigone is brave while Ismene is timid. The most important difference lies in Antigone’s willingness to change and Ismene’s wish that she can live thorough without making changes. This difference is so evident in their behaviors toward the burial of Polyneices. Antigone is willing to do anything for her brother to be buried. However, Ismene just worries about her sister. These differences in behaviors continues. Ismene accepts Creon’s demands, but Antigone taking risks. For example, Antigone even sacrifices her life to bury her brother.
As people can infer from history, men have been in positions of authority for most of time. However, there were some women figures who kept their values, proudly fulfilled their goals, and challenged themselves the the power. Antigone in Sophocles’ Antigone exemplifies a brave woman who challenges authority and values morality through her sacrifices, characteristics, and behaviors. She sacrifices her marriage and her future fulfillment as a woman to bury her brother. She sacrifices her enjoyment to follow her values and to reach her goals. She never gives up her values. Her first words in the play – “My own flesh and blood” – vividly emphasize erg commitment to her relatives. She is a person who is tenacious and recalcitrant. She also fulfills what she wants to do and challenges power for the sake of her family. She challenges Creon’s authority because she wants to bury her brother. Although this action violates the law of city, she wants to follow her morality and emotion. Thus, she portrays a brave woman who respects morality and love, and whose family’s ties shape her character and actions.
If we violate the laws and override
the fixed decree of the throne, its power –
we must be sensible. 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, (72 – 77).
Ismene feels disempowered by her gender, her class and her lack of political power, but in her reply to her sister Antigone mentions “the laws the gods hold in honor” (91 – 92), thus raising for the first time in the play the potential conflict between the man-made laws of society and the higher laws of morality and ethics. Where Antigone is rebellious, Ismene is conformist; where Antigone is brave and outspoken, Ismene is timid and obedient; where Antigone is prepared to break the law to keep faith with her brother, Ismene is meek and law-abiding. Ismene references above to her gender and class are interesting: Zwinkler (181) points out the popularity of productions of Antigone in times of totalitarian or repressive governments or when conservative societies are shaken by civil unrest and defiance of their laws. The French dramatist Jean Anouilh’s version of the play was published in 1943 during the German Occupation of France, with Antigone representing the French Resistance and Creon the Nazi invaders. During the Cold War productions of Antigone were enormously popular in Eastern Europe under the Soviet yoke, as they were in Western Europe in the summer of 1968. Sophocles’ Antigone is a strong woman, faithful to her family and her own frame of ethics, and prepared to defy the law to meet her obligations to her brother, but societies and audiences throughout time have seen in her a social rebel with a desire to challenge authority. By contrast, Ismene is a conformist who respects the laws of society.
Antigone exemplifies a woman who bravely challenges the authority through her sacrifices. Antigone does not have fulfillment of her womanhood and she sacrifices the excitement and the celebration as a woman: “Unmourned, Without loved ones, Without my marriage-song, I am led in misery” (Sophocles, 843-6). Because she decides to bury Polyneices and not to marry Heamon, she gives up much happiness to enjoy as a woman. This decision indicates that she also must sacrifice her sexual and maternal role: “And now he is having me seized and led away, unmarried, with no wedding song, without my share in marriage and the raising of children.” (881-3). She suffers from these sacrifices, but these pains are inevitable in order to bury her brother, so she consoles herself with her love of family: “I nurse the hope that my father will welcome me with love; that I will be loved by you, my mother, and by you, dear brotherBut now, Polyneices, for tending your body, I have won this reward”. (865-70). She sacrifices much happiness and enjoyment to challenge authority. However, she tries to find hope in despair to achieve her goal to bury Polyneices. She finally gets to her home where she will, die but she imagines it as a bridal chamber and a family home: “My tomb, my bridal chamber, my grave and home that will guard me forever, where I go to meet my own, the great number of dead that Persephone has received.” (860-3). Her words have enormous resonance here: she is portraying her fate is a rebellious cat of self-sacrifice to the ideals of freedom. Even though she feels painful and gives up everything, even her life, she consoles herself and looks for hope in achieving her goal. Thus, Antigone symbolizes woman who can sacrifice to challenge and to proceed for her desire.
Antigone’s strength indicates that she is a person who never gives up and values personal morality. The function of Ismene in Sophocles’ play is to provide the counter-balance to Antigone. She must be the brave because women did not have many rights or freedoms at that time, but Antigone never surrenders to authority and continues to make arguments against Creon’s abuse of power. This bravery is based on her ethical beliefs. She values morality, so she cannot accept her brother being alone in the middle of nowhere. She is also very tenacious; she does not feel frustrated easily and tries to find hope in despair: “My tomb, my bridal chamber, my grave and home that will guard me forever, where I go to meet my own, the great number of dead that Persephone has received.” (861-3). Although she is facing death alone in the tomb, she considers the tomb to be her bridal chamber and home that will protect her. This kind of tenacity drives her to reach her goal and to challenge authority. Characteristics make Antigone a very special person and her qualities of courage, unswerving loyalty to her family and moral integrity, portray Antigone as a person who motivates herself.
Antigone is a unique female character who encourages herself and protests against power. She symbolizes woman who respects morality and conscience. She also portrays female who does not submit to authority. This nature of Antigone is proved by her behaviors. Antigone is never afraid of death and she never submits to her fate. Although she knows that she will face death, she challenges Creon who is king and has all the authority. She keeps making argument against Creon to bury her brother, Polyneices: “If I were a mother, and my children were rotting in death, or my husband, I would never have taken on this task against the city’s will. What law do I respect in saying this? I could have had another husband if one had diedbut with my mother and father hidden in Hades, no other brother to me could be born.” (871-77). She says not only that she would not have done it for a husband or child; but also that she buried Polyneices only because as a brother he was irreplaceable. Antigone considers emotion as more important than rationality. City’s law, which is Creon’s argument, can only be understood in the way it seeks to regulate the excesses of human behaviour so that they suppressed or so that they are subservient to the more and conventions of the city. However, Antigone’s argument is based on emotion which god has provided and it is innately given: “What justice of the gods have I transgressed? Why should I look to the gods any longer in my misfortune? What ally should I call upon? For in acting with reverence I have earned the charge of irreverenceBut if it is these people who are the sinners, I pray they suffer no more than they wrongfully inflict on me.” (885-92). Her reasoning is based on human morality and love of family and she does not give up her values. Thus, she is the character who respects morality and emotion. Most people usually act similarly to Ismene, because people do not want to risk themselves. On the other hand, Antigone shows bravery and behaves based on her values. Although there is a pressure and fear toward death, she overcomes fear and never surrenders to power or to the mores of her society. As these actions indicate, she symbolizes female rebel who does not submit to authority and a woman who respects values such as love and morality, and is prepared to die for them.
Classical Greek drama implies how people should act and portray characters that people can see in history. In Sophocles’ Antigone, Antigone is portrayed as a brave, rebellious woman who never gives up challenging the authority and respects values such as morality and love. She sacrifices her fulfillment as a female to reach her goal. She gave up marriage and happiness as a mother to bury her brother. Her unique characteristics lead her to achieve and never give up. Lastly, her behavior toward the king Creon proves that she is a brave woman. Her action in burying her brother shows how she is brave and respects her family.
Work Cited
Sophocles, David Franklin, and John Harrison. Antigone. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003. Print.
Zwinkler, Martin. A History of ‘Antigone’ in Performance. Cambridge; Cambridge UP. 2009. Print.
