Dylan Madden Word Count: 508
Sophocles’ Antigone Response
6 September 2017
Before her story, Antigone’s brother Polynices, who led the armies of Argos to an unsuccessful attack which killed him and her other brother Eteocles, was considered a traitor by the new king of Thebes, Creon. Because of his actions, Creon didn’t want to bury his body however, Polynices sister Antigone saw his unburied corpse to be an offense not only to the gods but the fact that her brother to not be buried led her into doing what was right to her by burying her brother herself.
Unlike Antigone, her sister Ismene was a woman who tried to be safe, to talk Antigone out of her plan. She knew of the consequences but also defined her weakness when comparing women to men: “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” (74-77). She clearly believed men had power over women but Antigone thought differently as she went
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She had no bravery or feminine aspects like Antigone and rarely appeared until the end after the attempts from Creon’s son Haemon and the blind prophet Tiresias that convinced Creon to have a change of heart; leading to him burying Polynices and releasing Antigone who already took her own life by hanging herself in the tomb where she was being kept because she chose to die quickly rather slowly. Creon’s actions not only costed her life but the life of his son Haemon who threatened to kill his father but took his own life instead. Eurydice, after hearing from the messenger about both her son and Antigone, couldn’t handle the news of death and, according to the messenger, took her life as “she drove home to the heart with her own hand” (1440). Her actions left Creon alone and alive to suffer from his own guilt for the deaths his actions had