Antigone and Ismene :: English Literature Essays

Antig ane and Ismenetragic heroes are generally people of high social stature with a tragic f justness that usually manifests itself in the form of poor purpose and arrogance, condemning the hero to a disastrous end and establishing the characters destiny. Antigone is a tragic heroine deeply conflicted between her virtue and her hubris, personifying courage in her civil disobe deceasence against criminal leadership. A product of incest, her very human race is shameful, notwithstanding perhaps this is why Antigone has such a burning propensity for righteousness. She has great regard for following tradition, and a compulsion to follow these traditions evening at the cost of her own life. Sacrifice is one of her qualities and she is ready to die for what she believes in. She shows disdain for Ismenes cowardice and tendency to be a fair-weather friend. Her reprisals against traitors are especially fiery. Her concern for family becomes almost an unhealthy obsession, and her selfless ness is soon shown to be madness and self-infliction. Being a tragic heroine, she shows excellence of character and bravery, but her fatal flaw is that her will to please the gods is greater than her will to continue her own life. In the end, uncompromised rigidity is her downfall. She obeys the laws of the gods and is careless about the mortal laws penalty, her own death. Antigone does not understand the need to act harmonize to humanitys place in the scheme in things, ones pleasing of the gods should continue up until the point when it puts ones life in danger. Our heroine shows hubris by breaking the rule of the golden mean, not because she is egotistical, but because her chair gets in the clouds when she believes herself to be a high and mighty enforcer of virtue. This is a form of arrogance, which Zeus despises. Her conception of justice is so rigid that she puts herself in harms way, which is not at all honorable in the eyes of the Greeks. Her holier than thou quest has gone too far, and she is stubborn and irrational, abstracted the common sense the Greeks so valued. One example of Antigones highly twisted vision of unbending idealism is when she told Ismene she wouldnt care if she let loose incriminations about the burial from the rooftops, an unnecessary passion and clear disregard of moderation. The demand opposite of her sister, Ismene is, according to Greek conventional wisdom of the time, functioning ideally in her moderation, aware that it is vital not to overstep her boundaries in the overall scheme of things.