Human nature dictates that conformity is the safer choice than individuality. When placed in a situation where one must either speak their mind and face severe consequences, or remain silent, there is much less risk in taking the second option. In Antigone, this is the dilemma that the title character is faced with where she must decide if she should honor her brother and die rather than say nothing and leave his dead body unburied outside the city walls. In the present day, those may not be the exact circumstances faced by most Americans, but one current topic that relates to this theme is conforming to gender roles and expectations. Written over two-thousand years ago, Antigone is ultimately based upon the struggle of an individual person …show more content…
Ismene, Antigone’s sister, represents every expectation of women at the time; she is submissive and conforming, and doesn’t dare go against the law. When Antigone proposes the idea to bury Polynices, Ismene refuses to give her brother a proper burial in fear of facing punishment: “Remember we are women, we’re not born to contend with men. Then too, we’re underlings, ruled by much stronger hands [...] I must obey the ones who stand in power” (Antigone Li. 74-80). At this time in Greece, women were in charge of the oikos, or household, and men treated them like property. At home, women handled making clothes, cooking, cleaning, weaving, and raising and teaching children (“Women in Greece”). A woman belonged to her father until he paid a dowry and had her married off, and then she became the property of her husband. Women rarely received inheritances or owned property themselves (“Greek Attitudes”). Homeric women, like Penelope from The Odyssey, and Andromache from The Iliad, exemplify the expectations of wives at this time. While their main role was to produce and raise heirs, they also wove clothing and watched over their servants (Fantham 33). In the absence of Penelope’s husband, Odysseus, her main objective is protecting the house and her name by fending off incoming suitors, much like the role of women in Greece around …show more content…
198-202). While men presided over all aspects of government, foreign affairs, and wars, they also had the responsibility fathering strong heirs, as Creon explains: “That’s what a man prays for: to produce good sons - households full of them, dutiful and attentive [...] But the man who rears a brood of useless children, what has he brought into the world, I ask you? ” (Antigone Li. 715-720). Since he embodies the expectations of men at that time, Creon’s goals in life are to lead, protect his name, and ensure that his family line successfully continues on. However, Haemon doesn’t want to follow these goals. Haemon, in contrast, is an individualist, but not to the same extreme as Antigone. Initially agreeing with his father, he reveals his true opinions when he reacts to Creon interpreting his words as a threat: “What threat? Combating your empty, mindless judgments with a word?” (Antigone Li. 845-846). Although not as defiantly as Antigone, Haemon disregards gender roles by defending her, pointing out the blatant flaws in his father’s logic, and refusing to conform to the