Antigone Vs Creon

In Greek society, women are viewed as untrustworthy and incapable of possessing power. In the plays, Antigone and Agamemnon, the authors portray the female characters as subordinate to the male characters. An individual’s gender dictates how society reacts towards their actions and what is acceptable. It is outside of the society’s guidelines for a woman to assert herself in any manner. She is expected to obey man’s law regardless of her own perspective towards the situation. If an individual behaves as weak or unsubordinated then they would be classified as women under Greek society. A female character in both plays behave out of manner by asserting their own morals over the law of man. In Antigone, Antigone refuses Creon’s laws and believes

Antigone directs herself and challenges these stereotypes and creates challenges for the men around her. Antigone was proud of her decisions to go against Creon’s law, to not bury her brother, and that was her crime against society. Antigone denied Creon’s authority over her. “But this proud girl, in insolence well-schooled, first overstepped the established law, and then […] She boasts and glories in her wickedness.” (Line 480-493). Antigone glorified her rejection of Creon’s authority over her. She understood what it meant for her to deny her expectations of obedience but still acted on what she believed to be correct. She acts on her own morals with the acknowledgement of what man views as right. She behaves with male characteristics because she believed them to be justified under the laws of the Gods. She argues that she could not have let her brother remain unburied because it was the right thing to do under the laws of the Gods. She says that Creon's law cannot override the Gods therefore, she will not obey Creon. More so because Creon wants to asserts his dominance over more than what society allows. “For me it was not Zeus who made that order. Nor did that Justice who lives with the gods below mark out such laws to hold among mankind. Nor did I think your orders were so strong that you, a mortal man, could overrun the gods’ unwritten and

In Antigone Creon harshly punishes Antigone simply because she is a woman. Had she been a man the consequences of her actions would not have been as heavy. The use of gender roles in both plays dictate how the public views the individual’s actions. In Agamemnon gender roles reveal the standards of Greek society and the dictatorship they hold over the character’s lives. Because the society has associated incompetence and untrustworthiness with women whenever a character demonstrates one of these traits they are then denoted as a less important figure. Therefore, when Clytemnestra and Antigone’s demonstrate male characteristics they defy the standards of being a woman through gender reversal. A character that behaves with female characteristics is expected to obey the male character. In both plays a female character asserts her own morals above a man’s which result in the reversal of gender roles under Greek