Femininity In Antigone Essay

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Over the years, literature has played a very important role in showing traits of behavior of past societies, and some of it, has particularly focused of patriarchal societies and oppression of women. In ancient Greece, literature explored some problems of the Greek society and in many cases, exposed several of these issues to the public through theatrical representations. The drama genre in particular, was one of the most relevant forms of literature in ancient Greece, and some of the first representatives of this genre are Euripides, author of Medea and Sophocles, who wrote Antigone. The main characters portrayed in these works of literature, written by men living in a patriarchal society, challenged the stereotype of women and femininity. The roles of Athenian women in the fifth century B.C. were primarily those of wife and mother. The Athenians, in their patriarchal society, selected models for women based on the divine and heroic …show more content…

As she speaks with her sister Ismene trying to convince her to help her, Antigone uses manly language to express herself. In particular, the word “glory” that Antigone uses, had a lot of meaning in Greek society. “Glory” was something that belonged exclusively to men and it was earned by great heroic actions such as dying in battle, and only men fought battles. In this case, Antigone believes that there is no bigger suffering for her than death without glory which leads her to fight for her believes and go against her own sister and the King. “If you say so, you will make me hate you, and the hatred of the dead, by all rights, will haunt you night and day. But leave me to my own absurdity, leave me to suffer this—dreadful thing. I will suffer nothing as great as death without glory.” (Antigone

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