Discuss the use of character foils in highlighting aspects of female protagonists in Sophocles Antigone and Ibsens Hedda Gabler

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Discuss the use of character foils in highlighting aspects of female protagonists in Sophocles’ Antigone and Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler

Both playwrights’ characterisations of female protagonists are accentuated by the characterisation of their antithetical character foils. In Antigone, Sophocles uses Ismene – the ideally orthodox incarnation of ancient Greek women – to emphasize the unruly nonconformist in Antigone. In Hedda Gabler, Ibsen utilizes the conventional, compassionate and womanly Thea to play up the androgynous, callous and destructive tendency in Hedda.

Sophocles straightaway establishes a divergence between the character foils by establishing their intentions in the first scene: Antigone’s to  “lift the body” against the King’s “proclamation,” while Ismene’s to “obey those who are in power.” Ismene opts to “obey those who are in power” meanwhile Antigone has a “hot heart for chilling deeds” and the “impossible.” The audience are likely to interpret Ismene’s yielding to authority as sensible and Antigone’s “defiance of the law” as a ludicrous practice that violates the norm. Consequently, Ismene’s circumspection only makes Sophocles’ depiction of Antigone’s rebellious manner more striking. Ismene’s prudent and temperate intent enhances Antigone’s uncontrollably disruptive and wilful scheme.

Moreover, Ismene’s shrewdness plays up the absurdity behind Antigone’s wilfulness. Sophocles marks the polarity between Ismene’s heedfulness and Antigone’s imprudent disposition. While Ismene knows her duty not to “fight against men” or “overstep [her] bounds,” Antigone insists on “plotting [the] burial” and breaking the King’s “proclamation.” Furthermore, while Sophocles gives grounds for Ismene’s cautiousness, proving that it is not self-effacing or cowardly but instead shrewd and sensible, Antigone’s brazen uprising goes unjustified. While Ismene wisely reasons that for the family’s last two descendants to die “[defying]” the law is “most [miserable] of all”, Antigone’s actions owe more to her unwarranted policy that it is “noble” to defy than to the “unwritten, unassailable laws of the gods.” By wholly justifying Ismene’s intent meanwhile reprimanding Antigone’s tenuous excuse, Sophocles emphasizes Antigone’s irrationality.

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Furthermore, when Antigone is placed side by side with the quiet and composed Ismene, her propensity as a blatant rebel is reinforced. Sophocles categorizes Ismene as the epitome of an ideal Athenian woman as her abject submissive coincides with Euripides’ declaration: “A modest silence is a woman’s crown.” Meanwhile, Antigone is loud and unsubtle about her uprising: she wants to “shout it out” – to publicize her rebellion. Thereby, Antigone’s brazenness is greatly underscored when placed next to Ismene’s docility.

Subsequently, Sophocles establishes both Ismene’s traditional virtues and Antigone’s unorthodox dissident to enhance Antigone’s status as a rebel. The convention ...

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