Reflective Statement How was your understanding of cultural and contextual considerations of the work developed through the IO? The interactive orals were quite interesting as I could easily connect what was being said to the cultural and contextual considerations of the play Antigone. As a general background, one can possibly notice that Sophocles was more about the art then about the economy. He was the Michelangelo of his time, so to speak. Antigone is a great nationalistic play which illustrated how Greece was at the time, and also of how women were perceived to be much inferior then men.
Although Antigone and perhaps Ismene are the main characters of this play, they both reveal different aspects of woman. While Antigone represents the rebel who opposes the law, Ismene symbolizes what a woman at the time would be like, powerless and compelled to obey the rules. Through my perspective, Sophocles wanted to illustrate these two contrasts in order to waken people up. He represented the concerns of people through both Ismene and Antigone’s characters as he portrayed the dull shadows of how woman act through Ismene’s eyes, but he also portrays how woman should act through Antigone’s thoughts and actions.
In this play, Antigone is punished for a crime she believed was shameless because she would rather follow the divine laws then man made laws disregarding any human feelings. She buried her brother, Polynices, knowing exactly the punishment she would endure which was death. In a tragic play such as this one, one can only assume that whatever downfall there is it would have to be death. In this case, Sophocles wanted to provoke the people by having his main character die.
He wanted to impact but especially influence them with a women’s death especially since her punishment was nonsense because of the supposedly crime she committed was justifiable. Sophocles wanted to represent the voice of democracy through his play Antigone, and he came through it because starting later those years democracy was being established and women were given new rights. Sophocles wrote indirectly about political, social, and religious matters through his character’s actions and thoughts. He represented the concerns of everyone and thus making him one of the most influential play writers of all times.
