Sophocles is the playwright for the very popular tragedy “Antigone” written in ancient Greece around 440 B.C.. “The Burial at Thebes” is a play based on Sophocles “Antigone”, but written by Seamus Heaney in the early 2000’s. Both of these plays portray the main character, Antigone, as a strong, independent activist for the equality of women by pursuing what she believes is right and just.
Traveling back to ancient Greece around 440 B.C., we learn that women don’t have many rights and are often treated as objects, rather than people. It was custom for women to have arranged marriages, having their husbands selected for them from a male relative, most likely their father. It did not matter if the women wanted to marry this man or not, she had no say. Women did not look forward to their wedding and often dreaded the thought of it. Women who did not own any property, or have any money, could not be married. But once the couple was married, the property of the female, would then be under supervision of her husband. In ancient Greece, women were only allowed to trade belongings if they were
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Antigone was not married but she was also conformed within most of these rules and regulations, although she was not like most of the other girls due to the fact that she told Ismene “From mine own He has no right to stay me”, referring to Creon. She was not bothered by risking her own life by going against her future uncle-in-laws orders, or by going against the norms of society. Antigone is seen in these plays as a self-righteous feminist, determined to do what she feels is right even if she is breaking the law. Antigone has major respect for the dead and believes they deserve special treatment. Her devotion to respecting her dead brother leads to her own death, and the death of Creon’s son and wife by the form of