Tragedy
Sophocles once proclaimed “The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves.” This means that most of people’s difficulties are caused by their actions. A tragic hero is a person that makes choices that leads to his/her downfall and eventually destroys her, while an anti-hero has qualities that are very flawed and can create a lot of tensions when she intervenes in other people's lives. Antigone by Sophocles shows Antigone as an example of a daring female who went against authority to honor her brother. Whereas in A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams, the anti-hero Blanche is a broken, grief-stricken woman who visits her sister, Stella, and faces numerous conflicts with Stanley, Stella's husband. A protagonist like Antigone should be considered a tragic hero due to her selfless actions involving her brother, while Blanche’s refusal to face reality makes her an antihero.
Antigone can be viewed as a Greek tragic hero who made an irreversible decision when she made a commitment to bury her brother. In Antigone’s life, she has lost the majority of the people she loved: her parents and her brothers Eteocles and Polynices, who went to war with each other to determine who would be the next king. All she has left is her sister, Ismene, and at this crossroads in her life, she has nothing left to lose and that is what propels her to bury Polyneices while disobeying authority. Antigone asks Ismene for assistance with the burial, but her sister refuses because she does not want to defy the authority of the King of Thebes who is their uncle, Creon. Ismene shows her disapproval as she states, “At least do not speak of this act to anyone else; bury him in secret; I will be silent, too” (Sophocles 97-98). Ismene’s innocent statement agitates Antigone because she does not want Ismene’s silence and a promise to secrecy, rather she wants people to recognize her heroic act.
Unlike Antigone who is viewed as a tragic hero for her altruistic and fearless actions, Blanche can be observed as anti-hero. She is flawed in many ways, like being a liar and having a hidden past. But people unintentionally fall victim to her sympathetic gestures. Stella expresses a lot of mixed emotions and profoundly understands what Blanche’s conflicts are and sometimes she feels sorry for Blanche. Blanche speaks her mind when she vents to Stella about what she really feels about Stanley because they are sisters and share that blood relationship. Blanche states,“He acts like an animal, has an animal's habits! Eats like one, moves like one, talks like one!” (Williams 1198). Blanche thinks that Stanley acts like an animal because he does not have genuine emotions, manners or care about others, but only cares about himself. She is insulting Stanley and telling the truth to protect her sister by letting her know that she can have a better life without him. Stanley is tremendously enraged by Blanche’s claims about him, but while she can advertise the truth about him to Stella, she is unable to confront herself and accept that she is living in a fantasy world covered with her lies and not involved in the realistic world. Blanche’s surprise interference in Stanley and Stella’s life provokes Stanley to become increasingly aggressive to the point where the solution to his problem is to ultimately seek revenge.
Antigone’s fearlessness is evident when she knows the consequence of her action is death, but that does not worry her because she is doing this risky task for her brother who is family. For example, Antigone tells Ismene that “I myself will bury him. It will be good to die, so doing” (Sophocles 82-83). It is factual that Antigone holds deep value when it comes to family and doing what is ethical when it comes to the people she loves. Antigone is accepting towards her punishment because when she buries Polyneices, she is giving him solace, honor, and nobility. In her point of view, there is nothing more important than family, honor, and following her heart, doing what is right, and disregarding what is socially acceptable. Even though it was Antigone's free will to bury her brother, it was the concept of fate set forth by the gods that led her to follow her morality. This is exemplified when she says, “Nothing that you say pleases me; God forbid it ever should. So my words, too, naturally offend you” (Sophocles 544-546). Antigone is more confident to carry out her well executed deed because she understands that the gods had proclaimed that she would be the one to defy authority and do this righteous act. No matter what Creon does or says, nothing affects Antigone because she sacrificed her life and is ambitious to fulfill giving her brother solace.
While Antigone holds herself to high ethics, Blanche is a damaged person who has shady and suspicious qualities, which creates multiple conflicts that result in her tragic downfall. Blanche had nothing left in her life when she arrived in New Orleans, visiting the Kowalski residence. The first moment she met her brother in law, Stanley, did not create a pleasant first impression. Blanche wants to create the most, perfect version of herself and to do that she covers herself in the idea of lies and deceit. For example, when Stanley offers Blanche a drink, Blanche states, “No, I- rarely touch it” (Williams 1175). She constantly drinks to escape from her past and, even for one second, to forget the events that she had been through, but she frequently denies her drinking habits. The moment that they met, Stanley sees right through Blanche as he says, “Some people rarely touch it, but it touches them often” (Williams 1175). He indirectly implies that he has an idea of her drinking habit and her main defense mechanism to protect herself from her identity and her past by making modifications to the story she tells people.
Blanche demonstrates that she is an antihero by doing things to not confront her past and to run away from reality. She desires to wake up from her shattered and problematic current lifestyle in order to feel secure again. She aspires to do this in a sacred ceremony of marriage with Stanley’s friend, Mitch. Blanche and Mitch have similar personalities because both of them are lonely people looking for company and have dreams of getting married. It is evident that both Blanche and Mitch are envious of what Stella and Stanley have, which is marriage and passion for each other. For example, “I want to rest! I want to breathe quietly again! Yes – I want Mitch… very badly! Just think! If it happens! I can leave here and not be anyone’s problem” (Williams 1203). Blanche’s desperation reveals that she hopes to marry Mitch as a getaway ticket from her problems and not because she is experiencing true love and affection towards him.
Antigone and Blanche both symbolize audacious women who fought with all their power and fell victim to inevitable catastrophe. The downfall of Antigone resulted when she chose to express what was on her mind when she decided to do the forbidden notion of burying her dead, traitorous brother. For instance, “Creon thinks me wrong, even a criminal, and now takes me by hand and leads me away, unbedded, without bridal, without share in marriage and in nurturing of children; as lonely as you can see me” ( Sophocles 964-968). Antigone gives up her life to fulfill her destiny in giving solace to her brother that she never got to experience the things she desired to do like getting married and having children. Her choice of honoring the dead took precedence over the life that she one day dreamed of having. In the very end, Antigone dies by hanging herself. Contrary to Antigone, Blanche’s downfall occurred when she chose to live her life in a world of illusion due to the fact that she wanted to escape all of her conflicts and make herself think that her life was better than what it truly was. For example, “I don’t want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them” (Williams 1223). Blanche’s eagerness to gain everyone's respect, attention and make everyone believe that she has no defect leads her to live in lies. While her enemy, Stanley makes it his personal mission to snap Blanche back into reality. The rape was Stanley’s attempt to unleash his displeasure and hate towards Blanche, but the consequence of his actions wrecks her immensely. Ultimately, Blanche’s suffering goes the farthest from reality that she withdraws into the world of illusion and is placed in a mental institution.
In comparison, Antigone's actions are similar to those done by whistleblower Edward Snowden. Edward Snowden worked for the Central Intelligence Agency during which he was responsible for releasing classified information from the National Security Agency to the public. Edward chose to ignore the consequence that his actions would cause and he gave no consideration to his life but did what he thought was morally right. He risked his life so that he could release vital information to the public because he felt the public deserved to know what is going on. Contrary to doing what is right, Edward is similar to Blanche in the sense that he is hiding from everything instead of facing his problems head on. In the article, “The Edward Snowden Files,” it is stated that, “Snowden vanished again, this time for 13 days, from June 11 to June 23, before turning up in Russia, which gave him sanctuary, protection and a global platform for his campaign to expose further NSA secrets, and which offered to protect him from prosecution for his crimes” (Epstein 1). Blanche chose to shield herself from the truth because her reality was too painful for her to face, just like Edward whose actions were said to be brave, but he chose to hide because of the fear of facing his consequences. If Antigone's actions were to happen in the 21st century, the majority of the population would have praised her for her heroic attitude, but the minority of the population would have observed her actions in a negative, disobedient aspect.
Antigone’s and Blanche’s lives are filled with inevitable challenges. This makes them unique female characters because they gave it their best attempt to overcome their obstacles but failed in the hands of misfortune endings. Though Antigone’s actions were viewed as unjust and disobedient by some, she believed in her action so profusely that nothing stopped her, not the consequence or the law. Blanche's world of illusion and ignorance of reality creates an adversary, Stanley. Both Antigone and Blanche, the tragic and anti-hero, respectively, are prime examples of Sophocles statement, “The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves.” They both were responsible for digging their grave the minute they made their decision.
Works Cited
EPSTEIN, EDWARD JAY. "The Edward Snowden Files." Newsweek Global, vol. 167, no. 26, 20 Jan. 2017, p. 20. EBSCOhost, hs1.farmingdale.edu:2048/login url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=120641357&site=eds-live.
Mays, Kelly J. The Norton introduction to literature. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2017.
Williams, Tennessee. A Streetcar Named Desire. Tennessee: The University of the South., 1974.
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