A Character Comparison: Nora vs. Antigone Essay

In the play Antigone, men view women as a threat to their masculinity and do whatever they have to in order to silence them. However, the women find ways to speak out anyway. Gender has profound affects on the meaning of Antigone's actions. Creon feels the need to defeat Antigone more so because she is a woman. Antigone's rebellion is especially threatening because it upsets gender roles and hierarchy. By refusing to be passive, she overturns one of the fundamental rules of her culture.

The first specification for the tragic hero is one of the few that both Antigone and Creon exhibit; both characters are between the extremes of perfect morality and pure villainy. Antigone’s moral neutrality is illustrated through her noble intentions and the unorthodox way she acts upon them. When she is confronted by Creon and demanded to give an explanation for her disobedience, Antigone says, “For me it was not Zeus who made that order. Nor did that Justice who lives with the gods below mark out such laws to hold among mankind” (Sophocles 207 ll. 450-2). Along with love and loyalty to her brother, Antigone is largely motivated by her desire for justice and appeasement of the gods. While her intentions are noble, Antigone’s actions in the

In Sophocles’s Antigone, we can see that the deeply misogynistic society of ancient Greece has manifested itself into Creon, a despotic ruler, despising dissidents, traitors, and especially women. His hatred of women manifested into several examples of misogyny throughout the play: He assumed that the criminal who buried Polyneices was a man, he looks down on Antigone’s defiance as improper defiance of a mans order by a woman, and he virtually disowns his son Haemon for disagreeing with him and listening to a woman.

Antigone, however, decides she would rather please the gods than man and buries her brother against King Creon’s orders. She is fully aware of the consequences should she get caught, yet she openly disobeys, even against her sister’s warnings. She gives Creon no additional respect either as a male in a patriarchal society or as a king and ultimate authority figure. In fact, she calls him a fool! Antigone boldly states to Creon himself, “If my present actions strike you as foolish, let’s just say I’ve been accused of folly by a fool,” (Sophocles p.657). The strong will and defiance she exhibits are very characteristic of modern feminism.

Even though Antigone exhibits a blamable pride and a hunger for glory, her disobedience is less serious than those of Creon. It is evident that Antigone’s actions are driven by a love for her brother, and a desire to please the gods. While Creon’s actions are

Sophocles introduces a female character in Antigone who is a strong believer and who demonstrates feminist logic. This is Antigone, as she rejects the traditional role of women. Antigone disobeys her king Creon, in various ways causing her to be portrayed as a feminist. For instance, Antigone struggles trying to secure a

The books A Doll’s House and Antigone are very similar in how they break many gender stereotypes of their age. In A Doll’s House, Nora at first molded into the serotype that all perfect wives will do what their husbands want. Though, through the play you find out she boward money without a mans permission, and at the end she left her husband, Torvald, and her children. Doing those things where extremely scandalous at the time. Antigone, unlike Nora, is revealed as a rebel throughout the whole play by sprinkling dirt over Polyneices.

She rebels against Creon’s rules and against the Greek patriarchy by continuing on with her plan. Creon’s indignation on antigone causes a disapproving son, who is Antigone’s fiance and ultimately the rest of society, eventually leading to Creon’s ultimate failure to lead as a king. Antigone overturns a fundamental rule, that women are not superior and should not speak out against man created laws. Since Creon has a misogynistic mindset, this leads to the Gods of Thebes to penalize him. “Nor did I think your edict had such force that you, a mere mortal, could override the gods” (II.4.503-504). Antigone spoke up against Creon for what was right to her, which was a rule followed by her people all the time and a law created by the Gods. However, Sophocles show the reader where fault lies and how women were viewed in Greek society, Antigone, however is a breakout character who goes against the human law and a threat to the status quo.

Not only is Antigone courageous and highly motivated by her morals by standing up for her political and religious beliefs, she also protects her personal ones when she buries her brother. Antigone places family above her own life, and she refuses to let a man stand in her way of maintaining her ideals. She buries Polynices out of her own loyalty to her brother even after her sister, Ismene, refuses. Antigone is cruel to her for not taking part in illegally burying their brother. Instead of being caring and considerate, she becomes irate and at the end of their conversation says, "Go away Ismene: I shall be hating you soon, and the dead will too, for your hateful words," Antigone's flaw was her headstrong behavior and her stubbornness, which ultimately brought about her downfall and the downfall of those around her. Her persistence of course, is what forces Antigone to rashly take matters in to her own hands. Creon then decides to take Antigone's life "Away with her at once, and close her up in her rock-vaulted tomb. Leave her and let her die". To everyone's surprise Antigone does not run from her death sentence suggesting a great trait of braveness, which the chorus recognizes before her exodus from life. The notion that a person has no say in the affairs of their loved ones and the fact that those laws were defied deserves

Next, Antigone and Nora show their determination many times throughout the plays by going against their authority figures and fighting for what they believe in. First off, Antigone takes

The Importance of family and cultural values is proved in the Greek playwright written by Sophocles. Sophocles helped us understand each character as we meet them in the first scene. Antigone, we learn that she is the antagonist as she rebels against her uncle, Creon, and her love of her own blood, and that she is not one to stand down for any man. Antigone, Ismene and Creon are characters that are of discussion in the play of gender roles.

In Antigone, a play by Sophocles, the sisters Ismene and Antigone make bold and unwavering decisions. Contrary to most male characters in Greek plays, their male counterparts do not exhibit many masculine traits. Despite the fact that Ismene and Antigone are Greek women, they show more traits that are stereotypically masculine than their male counterparts such as decisiveness, fearlessness, and defiance.

In the novels A Doll's House and Antigone, Ibsen and Sophocles respectively create two lead female characters, Nora and Antigone, who confront society's expectations of women in fundamentally different ways. Nora goes against the grain of middle class society by first forging her father's signature and then deceiving her husband, Torvald, throughout their marriage; Antigone, on the other hand, openly challenges and defies the rule of men, including her uncle and King of Thebes, Creon. Although Nora and Antigone share some comparable personality traits, like being strong willed and motivated, they confront the men in their lives and their comparable societies in two distinctive ways, which, as a

In merely looking at the surface, one notices right away that both plays are significant in that they avoid the social temptation of using a man as a protagonist. Looking deeper into the stories, however, one can see that in even more contradiction with society, the female characters go against men. Both Antigone and Nora step into the spotlight as the female hero who has been

In Sophocles’ Antigone and Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, both authors create women protagonists, Antigone and Nora, who challenge societies’ traditional expectations in different ways. Antigone defies and challenges the rules of her uncle and King of Thebes, Creon. Nora, on the other hand, goes against the norm of her society by first forging her father’s signature on a loan and deceiving her husband, Torvald. Although both Antigone and Nora’s societies possess similarities regarding a woman’s place and purpose, they both rebel against a woman’s societal expectations in substantially different ways with the similar pure motives, which as a result leads to two different freeing conclusions.