Gender Roles In Antigone

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In today's religions, humans honor one god. Whereas in ancient Greece, humans valued numerous gods. For example, Greeks believed that the gods demanded hospitality for strangers and proper burial for family members. Oracles, dreams, divination and prophesies gave notions to humans to how certain things gods found offensive. Offences included forgetting a sacrifice, violating the sanctity of a temple area, or breaking an oath or sworn agreement made to another person. A famous man, by the name of Oedipus, believed in these prophesies. It was prophesied Oedipus would marry his mom and kill his father. Ironically, all of this became true. Oedipus killed his father and married his mother. They had four children whom they named Polynices, Eteocles, Antigone and Ismene. In the play of Antigone, by Sophocles, Antigone is a woman who goes through many troubles because she buried her brother in honor of the gods. Her brothers, Polynices and Eteocles, made arrangements to share the throne. They agreed to take a one-year reign each. Eteocles refused to give it up, which led to Polynices bringing in an army. Eteocles…show more content…
Antigone is demeaned in this play because she is a woman. Creon tells the guards to take Ismene and Antigone away; death will take her away from Haemon. Creon says, “Stop wasting time. Take them in. From now on they’ll act like women”(lines 651-652). Antigone challenges this by going against Creon’s law, showing that women were bold and courageous. Woman back in ancient Greece couldn't really do much because they were thought as minority to men. Additionally, Creon tells everyone in the room that no woman is going to overpower him. He says, “While I’m alive, no woman is going to lord it over me”(lines 592-593). He’s telling everyone that women shouldn’t be thought as humans who can overpower men in anything. Antigone’s challenging the value of gender roles in order to show her respect for the
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