Gender Stereotyping in "Antigone".

Antigone - Prompt #3 CREON "Die then, and love the dead if thou must; No woman shall be the master while I live (184)." This quotation portrays a powerful and important theme about gender and the role that a woman plays in Greek society. Antigone's gender has an incredible effect on the others around her, for her actions don't constitute those of an average woman in Greek society. An average Greek woman is characterized as subservient and …

…Antigone's simple duty of burying Polyneices, she disrupts gender hierarchy and power hierarchy at the same time. Creon wants Antigone to take the role of a woman and be submissive, obedient, and defeated, while making himself dominant, free, authoritative, and victorious. Coincidentally, Creon is the only one in the story who cares about this gender hierarchy, because it is he, who, as a man in power, has the most to gain from this unjust system.