Abstract
Antigone's defiant words might be regarded as an archetypal statement of tragic heroism. Faced with a human instruction to leave her dead brother unburied, she fulfils the rites owed to the corpse knowing that this will lead to her death; when the time comes, she treats the tyrant who menaces her, Creon, with disdain. She does this as a powerless young woman, facing an older man in a position of total authority; the contrast between the figures on stage, evident in their costumes and masks, will have accentuated the shocking nature of her response. The chorus show her no sympathy. They are even older men, which makes the female Antigone seem all the more alone; other female characters who challenge the power of males, such as Procne or Euripides’ Medea, at least have a supportive chorus of the same gender. So the circumstances in which Antigone finds herself emphasize the bravery evident in her speech, where she shows herself willing to give up her life to treat her brother's corpse as she believes the laws of the gods demand.
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