Antigone Essay

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Philippa Gregory once said, “Any woman who dares to make her own destiny will always put herself in danger.” (The Lady of the Rivers). In the story of Antigone the main character, Antigone, was the sacrifice of her own fate. Antigone killed herself after being imprisoned for burying her “traitor” brother, Polyneices, which was outlawed by King Creon (Antigone’s uncle). Creon’s son, Haimon (Antigone’s cousin), was ordained to marry Antigone, but after she was convicted, Creon didn’t want a woman like that for Haimon. When hearing an ill-fated prophecy from the prophet Teiresias, Creon changed his mind and went to bury Polyneices and release Antigone from her captivity. Once Creon got to Antigone’s stone confinement, he found that she had already killed herself, and saw that Haimon was already beside her. Haimon was sprawled next to Antigone, while he grieved for the loss of his betrothed. Consequently, Haimon pulled out his sword and impaled himself because he didn’t want to live without Antigone. After Eurydice (Haimon’s mother and Creon’s wife) heard the news of her son, she also committed suicide. I believe that Antigone’s destiny would have been different if she was a man, and that gender decides fate.
Gender determines fate because men and women had different obligations during the Theban society. Part of the man’s role was to have power over their women. This is present when Creon makes reference that woman aren’t good for anything but to give pleasure. He also says “Who is the man here, she or I, if this crime goes unpunished” (pg679), which implies that if he lets her get away with what she’s done, then she will have more power over him. The woman’s duty was to abide and respect the desires of their men. Antigone breaks th...

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...ly job was to make sure that the men were happy. Ultimately, if she were a man she probably would’ve been punished differently, or wouldn’t have to go through the problem at all (for example, she would’ve been king if she were the eldest, then the two brothers wouldn’t have fought in the first place, and Eteocles or Polyneices wouldn’t have killed each other). Women also are very irrational when it comes to the extremity of their emotion. Assuming that she were a man she would have evaluated her emotions and found out what was best for the situation given the problem (perhaps she would’ve asked Creon first before burying her brother, by appealing to his more rational side, instead of going behind his back). Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “There is no such thing as accident; it is fate misnamed” so does being a girl or boy really determine where your future takes you?

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