Examples Of Femininity In Antigone

Definitions of Masculinity and Femininity in Antigone

“We must defend the men who live by law, never let some woman triumph over us,” Creon in Sophocles’s Antigone proclaims to his son (757-58). Masculinity, from ancient Greece to modern times, has been a concept which is earned and can easily be taken away. This belief raised the idea that femininity is the force that rips up the bounds of manhood. But this misconception that womanhood has led men to suppress those who show femininity and embrace it. But in Antigone, by defining the stereotypes of masculinity and femininity, Sophocles reveals that both genders represented by Antigone and Creon are impeded from accomplishing their duties to the state and gods by the stereotypes they force on

When Tiresias visits Creon to give him his fortune, Creon refuses to listen to Tiresias who claims Creon’s actions are powered by “his high resolve [that] sets [the] plague on Thebes” (1123). Creon holds his masculinity above his reasoning because he thinks his masculinity prohibits him from listening to a man creating new problems with the people who can be trusted. Also, by setting his masculinity over the people, Creon jeopardizes his effectiveness as king and throws away the respect the people gave him. However, after Antigone, Haemon and his wife die, he realizes that “through [his] stupidity” and stubbornness he loses his family and throne (1399). Creon’s stupidity is his stubbornness in holding onto his masculinity and not listening to the voice of the people around him. Only through the loss of his family does Creon realize that his downfall is not Antigone but himself, and the actions he decides to take in favor of himself. Creon’s obstinacy with which he regards as a virtue comes not as his savoir but his weakness, tearing him away from his throne and

When Antigone buries her brother against the state’s laws, she finds herself in front of Creon suffering “at the hands of what breed of men- all for [her] reverence for the gods” (1033-34). By following only the laws of the gods and not of men too Antigone demonstrates her loyalty to only her femininity. But holding feminine ideals above rational actions does not stop masculine duties from falling onto her. In consequence, soon Antigone wonders if “[she would] never have taken this ordeal upon [herself]” if she would have had a child or husband, after the reality of her actions comes to light as she is about to face her death sentence (998). Femininity means more than what Antigone was willing to stand up against the government for and she finally realizes that her decisions to focus only on the feminine laws she wanted. Only at the doors of death does she see that by taking a side so diligently like her counterpart Creon is not worth the pain it brings. Although Antigone does not regret her actions, she begins to see that she covets the feminine laws rather than seeing the sides equally brings about suffering rather than