Elements of Drama in the Sophocles' Play Antigone - Essay Example

English 28 Persuasive Essay One: The Elements of Drama (Option 3)In Sophocles' play Antigone, Angitone is the daughter of Oedipus as well as his sister too. This is because Oedipus married his own mother. Just like her father, Angitone is immensely decisive when it comes to dealing with issues that affect her personally. This can be seen when she chooses to defy Creon and tries to bury her brother regardless of the consequences. Some of the traits associated with her include self-righteousness, alienating, determined and even a feminist.

Antigone is the tragic heroine of the play. A tragic character of a play is one who experiences a significant downfall as a result of tragic happenings that in most cases, occur as consequences of the heroes actions.At the beginning of the play, the trait of Antigone comes out as totally different from that of her sister Ismene. While Ismene is radiant, beautiful and passive, her sister is withdrawn, scrawny, sallow and extremely recalcitrant. Her resentment towards her sister leads her to seduce her fiancé Haemon, although, in the end, she does not get to marry him.

This only shows that Antigone is always pushing her limits as well as those of the society regardless of the person, or people involved. Antigone’s character is a difficult one which refuses to pay attention to anyone else’s needs, not even her sisters’ and insists on getting things her own way. To this effect, she insists on burying her brother Polynices, to the extent that she does not care if gets killed. As a matter of fact, she delights in the thought saying “I myself will bury him.

It will be good to die, so doing. I shall lie by his side, loving him as he loved me; I shall be a criminal but – a religious one.” (Antigone, lines 81-85)Her refusal to do what she is advised and that which is morally right is what ends in her tragedy. In the play, she insists on following her desire through unreasonable limits. To this effect, she depicts her as abject, ugly, and even tabooed. She refuses to yield to the authority which in this case is Creon. Her tragic end comes when kills herself to avoid punishment for burying her brother even when forbidden to do so.

She is the tragic hero of the play because despite the fact that she campaigns for the clarification between human law and divine law, she still manages to come out as the odd one out. Throughout the play, she single-handedly challenges Creon’s authority. She does this by comparing his decree to leave Polynice’s body unburied to the will of the gods and the solid traditions of men. She has the intention of defending her family’s honour, and in so doing, she faces death, which does not deter her course.

As a tragic heroin, Antigone helps to enhance the theme of gender, thus highlighting the position of women in the Greek society. As a woman, Antigone’s gender profoundly affect the outcome her actions. Women in the Greek society had extremely limited freedom and according to Creon, defeating her would be no serious challenge because she is just a woman. The fact that Antigone rebelled against the norm was threatening to hierarchy and gender roles. Creon points out that she should get married and stop insisting on fighting him.

By insisting on being proactive, she manages to overturn one of the most basic rules of her culture thus putting women on the forefront instead of their overshadowed position.Works CitedSophocles. Angitone. Clayton, DE: Prestwick House Inc, 2005. Print.