Antigone: A young girl commands attention from everyone—the attention of the reader, the other characters in the play, and even the gods. The unlikely dedicant of a millennia-old play, written in a time where women were frequently illiterate, Antigone brands her name into cultural memory with strong-willed, bold actions. Her decisions are her own, and she is influenced by no man, citing “the unwritten, unalterable laws of God and heaven” as her moral compass. Though today there is more space in the literary canon for works by women or about women in some meaningful capacity, Antigone seems to stand out among other works of antiquity for its commitment to a brave, active, yet sympathetic female titular character. Unlike Helen of The Iliad, Antigone is noted for her actions and choices in the face of injustice, rather than used as a prop and scapegoat for the origin of the Trojan War. Helen is always defined in relation to male characters, rather than investigated as a complex woman of will, but Antigone refuses to be subsumed into a male entity, be it husband, brother, or father. Everyone around her has a different idea. For the people of Thebes, Antigone and her siblings will always be defined by the sins of their father, Oedipus. 

In fact, many atrocities committed by male characters have significant, often fatal aftershocks for the women. Prior to the events of the play, Oedipus fulfills the prophecy of killing his father and marrying his mother. This instance of deadly filial betrayal sets off the avalanche of violence that is Antigone. Once he learns what he has done, Jocasta hangs herself in front of Oedipus, and in anguish, gouges his own eyes out. His sins against the gods branded his family with a curse of pain, death, and agony; his two sons, Polynices and Eteocles, kill each other, leaving only daughters Antigone and Ismene left. With the men of the family having taken themselves out of the picture, the burial rites of the brothers are left for the sisters to seek. One, Eteocles, who was in defense of the city when he died, was given a proper burial as the law of the gods intended. Polynices, as he was allied with the invading army, was denied the final rites by Creon, the king of Thebes. 

Antigone is horrified by the thought that her brother would never be able to rest peacefully after all the suffering of his life. She seeks out her sister, Ismene, to help her move and bury the body in secret; while Ismene wishes her brother to be buried, she cannot justify to herself putting her own life in peril for the dead. Antigone takes the active role, deciding to bury him herself, though she had wished to bury him together as they are the only two of the family who remain. Passive Ismene tries to reason with Antigone, saying “we are women; it is not for us to fight against men.” While she doesn’t attempt any physical confrontations with Creon or any of his guards, Antigone resists Ismene’s notion of gender relations in any way she can. 

In particular, Antigone resists in ways that will work. She knows she is not a sword-wielding soldier, nor an athlete capable of escape. She undermines the injustice of Creon’s ruling deliberately with non-violent means. Antigone breaks the law against the burial of her brother, at first covertly, unseen by the guards, but returns again after the king’s men exhume and desecrate the body. Again, the rites were performed, the libations poured, but this time she was captured. She is taken to noted jerk and misogynist extraordinaire King Creon. She lays all her cards on the table; she has nothing to lose.  Antigone did not set out on this endeavor with survival as a priority. Before the first scene is over, she says to Ismene:

“And if I die for it, what happiness?
Convicted of reverence—I shall be content
to lie beside a brother whom I love.”

She retains this attitude with Creon. When confronted with her sentence, Antigone responds almost entirely in quips and taunts, needling the man who has decided her fate. Instead of pleading for mercy, Antigone shows off her quick wit in the face of death, provoking Creon with questions to make him reconsider his ideas. She isn’t angling for a pardon. She is attacking Creon in the only way she can—verbally. Her words are intended to make Creon and his masculine motives and pattern of actions seem ridiculous. Creon attempts to save face from emasculation by deciding to put Ismene to death as well. He reasons that a woman defying a man’s orders, even only allegedly as in Ismene’s case, is a capital crime. 

Creon harangues his son Haemon about the dangers of femininity in the face of Antigone’s defiance. Incensed from being made to reckon with his own insecurity and self-doubt, Creon ragefully warns:

“Do not be fooled, my son,
by lust and wiles of a woman.”

Even though Antigone and Ismene have done nothing of a sexual nature, the existence of their subversive disobedience is instantly placed into the matrix of sexualization. A woman succeeding in defying a man’s orders must be a result of her imminent nature; she is not capable of navigating the situation within the pathways carved by men, so her success must be due to playing dirty. In this masculine world, women can only achieve their goals by corrupting the virtuous man with the powerful sway of sex. 

He legitimizes the condemnation of Antigone by dragging her womanhood through the mud. He tells Haemon of his love:

“You’ll have bought
Cold comfort if your wife’s a worthless one.”

First comes the word “bought.” It is clear that Creon has no respect or love for women as he sees the marriage of Haemon and Antigone as a purely transactional affair. “Worthless” also robs Ismene of her humanity, defining her personhood as a fiscal value. Eerily, Creon chooses the  words “cold comfort” to describe Antigone, as she will later become Haemon’s cold comfort when he holds her dead body as he dies.

Antigone’s actions may seem stubborn, but it is important to remember that women who are strong-willed are often dismissed as inflexible and aggressive, while a man doing the same thing would be regarded as determined and brave, heroic even. The way she engages Creon so directly contradicts everything he expects of a woman—she is challenging the king. If she were not sentenced to death already, she certainly would be after their interaction. But Antigone has no illusions about her future; nothing will change her fate, but she recognizes that while she is still alive she can have an impact on those who might survive her. 

The scene in which Haemon discovers his bethrothed’s body is rife with implications relating to gender dynamics. When Creon orders the opening of Antigone’s sealed chamber, Haemon finds that Antigone has hanged herself by her bridal cloth. The material she has chosen to end her life with is a symbol of womanhood, of purity, and implies obedience and submission to a man. So when she creates a noose out of her wedding garment, she is symbolically embodying the way women are strangled and stifled by social rules and legal statutes that decree that a woman exercising her agency is a shame and a crime. 

Antigone’s death was caused by the mandates of a man obsessed with masculinity and upholding proper order. She makes her final act of agency one that would be unforgettable: taking her own life.