Interestingly enough, both Antigone's act of burial and her verbal defiance become the occasions on which she is called "manly" by the chorus, Creon, and the messengers. Indeed, Creon, scandalized by her defiance, resolves that while he lives "no woman shall rule," suggesting that if she rules, he will die. And at one point he angrily speaks to Haemon who has sided with Antigone and countered him: "Contemptible character, inferior to a woman!" Earlier, he speaks his fear of becoming fully unmanned by her: if the powers that have done this deed go unpunished, "Now I am no man, but she the man." Antigone thus appears to assume the form of a certain masculine sovereignty, a manhood that cannot be shared, which requires that its other be both feminine and inferior.

How do the representations of gender in the characters of Creon, Antigone, and Ismene construct and influence the characters' attitudes toward each other and ours toward them?

Creon may have something to offer after all. He believes justice requires him to give priority to the order of the polis, overruling individual judgments based on conscience.... Yet, he is ready to discuss the issue, to listen, to question, to entertain self-doubt. Although he believes that in a time of emergency the order of the polis may require harsh punishment for those who create disturbance, he is willing to reconsider. He listens to the chorus, to Teiresias, to others; and, although he seems adamant at times, he changes his mind. With his own hands he will unearth Antigone and bury the body of Polyneices. Antigone, on the other hand, has found a higher justice.... But she will not discuss her judgment; she remains unyielding. She never doubts the wisdom of her course. She isolates herself. She acts under the illusion that only she is able to grasp the meaning of higher justice. She can only conclude that she does not belong in this world, which so misunderstands the nature of right action.... Antigone's belief that she and only she understood justice and how it must apply in the particular situation before her left her with no choice but martyrdom. Antigone's flaw-the flaw of self-certainty-is the chief obstacle to this kind of deliberation… Politics in our time suffers from the same flaw. True believers, religious or secular, seek to replace deliberative politics with eternal principles. Such persons admit of just one right answer. Premises are beyond questioning. Defining political questions as exclusively governed by immutable principles of right eliminates all need for further, often troublesome debate. Only the process of arriving at conclusions-whether the right principle was applied-can be questioned.

Does Antigone's unswerving confidence in the path she has chosen constitute wisdom or arrogance?