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Responsibility In Hippolytus And Antigone

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In the Greek culture portrayed by the Tragedians, Men all must take responsibility for their actions as a given, to uphold their honor and to take actions that would benefit the society as a whole. Both authors of the plays Hippolytus (Euripides) and Antigone (Sophocles) show that women do indeed take responsibility for their actions just as men, however the actions of women, have a tenancy to have reasoning or motives that are emotion-based or traditional. Be there two systems of laws, those created by the gods and those created by man, both Tragedians show that women, as well as men, should act with the self-sense and responsibility to uphold the laws of the divine and maintain their morality.
Sophocles allows for a portrayal of women that …show more content…

He shows one woman, Antigone as the example of a responsible woman, and Ismene as that of a cowardly woman who fails to be. Based on textual evidence in dialogue, women have the ability to elect what direction to take, such as in the case of Ismene, she states that women are inferior and thus unable to make any sort of decision against men, in turn believing that they cannot take responsibility for actions; “We must remember that we two are women so not to fight with men…so I shall ask of them beneath the earth forgiveness, for in these things I am forced, and shall obey the men in power.” (Antigone 61-2, 65-7) She attempts to console Antigone by telling her she shall ask the Gods to forgive her for not attempting to bury her brother, by choosing not to act and not be forced to be responsible for anything, she is eventually spared from death but lives as a mere woman who is conscious of actions she is going to take but fails to provide a motive other than saving her life. In turn we see that later on, Sophocles writes her off as a character with no substance; she becomes miserable for not taking any responsibility nor having any morally righteous

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