Antigone themes

Overview

Antigone is centered on the past cultural setting of the city of Athens. There are two

explicit themes that come to play In Antigone the value of citizenship and women and

femininity. The essay will explore how the author explores these themes in the characters,

Antigone and Creon. The two themes allow for examination of the Athens society at a past time

in history.

Citizenship

Citizenship plays a center role to the life of many of Athens’s people at the time. The

author brings out the extreme political views regarding where the citizen of the city should place

his/her loyalty. The quote “Whoever places a friend / above the good of his country, he is

nothing: / I have no use for him.” places given importance to loyalty and duty to the nation

(Cairns, 2016). Creon uses the statement to reinstate his stance on citizenry. The perspective

makes Polynices forfeit his right to a proper burial as a citizen of Thebes. He was responsible for

an attack he had wedged towards the city when he attacked Thebes. This is not only seen to be a

sign of disloyalty to the state but also leads to him being regarded as an outcast and ceases to be

identified as Athens’s citizen.

“Anarchy! show me a greater crime in all earth” are words used by Creon as he reinstates

his devotion to the law. This even applies to the happiness of his son Haemon (Cairns, 2016). He

refuted to pardon Antigone even though she is Haemon’s fiancée. This is reaction to her burying

Polynice in Athens even when she knew she isn’t supposed but her ties to Polynice assert her

logic of doing the good deed and standing by her family. Creon places traditions and loyalty to
the city as the core values to his everyday thinking and actions. In contrast to Creon, Antigone

does not place her obedience to the city gods and leaders above the loyalty to her family.

Women and femininity

Antigone explores a contrast between the behavior expected of women and the reality of

their role in society. Creon expects men to be the primary actors in society and women to take a

secondary and subservient role. The author points out how daughters need to be the embodiment

of their fathers. He alludes that “Like father like daughter, passionate wild …she hasn’t learned

to bend before adversity.” There is continued to the expectations of the society in the family

setting (Cairns, 2016). Opinionated Antigone challenges these notions as she takes center

stage and presents formidable challenges to the men around her. However, her role as a woman

in the ancient Greek society comes to play. Her behavior doesn’t match the voice opinion she

voices. Women were in the past expected to be loyal to their husband while still continuing to be

submissive to their husband’s words. In the book he writes “Spit her out, like a mortal enemy -let

the girl go. Let her find a husband down among the dead.” (Cairns, 2016). This alludes that

woman were subject to punitive laws if they didn’t abide to what their husbands put across. It is

at this point when Creon gives Antigone a harsh punishment simply because she is a woman; if

the law-breaker had been a man, he would not have been sentenced to death.
 References

Cairns, D. (2016). Sophocles: Antigone. Bloomsbury Publishing.