Antigone and Ismene :: English Literature Essays

Antigone and IsmeneTragic heroes are generally people of high social peak with a tragic flaw that usually manifests itself in the form of poor judgment 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 disobedience against criminal leadership. A product of incest, her very existence is shameful, alone perhaps this is why Antigone has such a burning desire for righteousness. She has great regard for following tradition, and a compulsion to follow these traditions even at the damage of her own carriage. 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 approximately an unhealthy obsession, and her selflessness is soon shown t o 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 amuse the gods is greater than her will to preserve 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 engage to act according 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 head 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 eye of the classics. Her holier than thou quest has gone too far, and she i s stubborn and irrational, lacking the common sense the Greeks so valued. One example of Antigones extremely twisted romance of unbending idealism is when she told Ismene she wouldnt care if she yelled incriminations about the burial from the rooftops, an unnecessary passion and clear disregard of moderation. The exact 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.