Monday, February 6, 2012

Identify the speaker, recipient, and signficance of this line from "Antigone":"We are only women."

Ismene tells her sister Antigone, "We are only women." 
Antigone has revealed to her sister that she plans to bury the body of their brother
Polyneices, and she wants to know if Ismene will help her.  Antigone believes that it is
the right thing to follow the laws of the gods, and she wants to honor the life of her
brother by burying him.  Ismene, on the other hand, believes that it is more important
to follow the laws of men, and she does not want to get into trouble and be punished for
burying the body.  Creon has ordered that the body remain in the street for carrion to
take it away, and he says that anyone who tries to move it will be executed.  Ismene
tells her sister that "we are only women" because she is following the traditional
social order of their culture--men make the laws and women do not have the right or
power to challenge these laws.  The line is significant because it sets the line of
conflict in the play--to follow the laws of the gods or of men.

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