Student Question
How are Antigone, Gertrude, and Ophelia similar?
Quick answer:
Antigone, Gertrude, and Ophelia are similar as tragic figures affected by familial and societal pressures. Antigone and Gertrude both pursue their goals with determination, though Antigone is more independent. Antigone and Ophelia share experiences of being victimized by male authority figures and have close relationships with their brothers. All three die due to state-related conflicts, with Antigone and Ophelia dying by suicide and Gertrude by murder. Their blindness to personal flaws or familial issues is a shared trait.
If you are writing an essay and need to provide support from Antigone and Hamlet for a comparison of these female characters, you could certainly prove that Antigone and Gertrude are similar. They both know what they want and are willing to do almost anything to attain their objectives. While Antigone's goal (pleasing the gods) is nobler than Gertrude's, the two women's methods are quite similar. Similarly, Antigone (even though she is the title character) and Gertrude play central roles in their respective plays regardless of the fact that in comparison to other characters, they do not have a vast number of lines. The main dissimilarity between the two women is that Antigone is fiercely independent and believes that what she has done is right (trying to bury her brother and prepare his life for the underworld). In contrast Gertrude admits to her son that he has done wrong and...
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is dependent upon the male characters throughout the entirety of the play.
At first glance, it would seem that Antigone and Ophelia have little in common, but there are several similarities. Both young women have close relationships with their brothers and both are abused by men who should have their best interest at heart (Antigone by her uncle Creon and Ophelia by her lover Hamlet). Another similarity is that Antigone and Ophelia both commit suicide (although some critics intepret Ophelia's death in another way, it's normally portrayed on stage as a suicide). Finally, the two younger ladies have idealistic views of life--Antigone believes that others and she should follow the gods' wishes and sincerely expects others to act morally and selflessly; this results in her death. Ophelia, too, sees the best in others and naively believes that others possess positive motives for their actions and words. She loses her mind when this belief proves to be false.
Despite the similarities between Antigone and Ophelia, Antigone is once again a fiercely independent creature in comparison to Ophelia. She does not commit suicide out of weakness; but rather, she does so to prove a point to her uncle and to please the gods. She sees her death as noble in contrast to Ophelia's simply giving up the will to live.
In the plays Antigone and Hamlet, Antigone, Gertrude, and Ophelia are all tragic victims, though only Antigone, I would say, is a tragic hero.
Antigone is a tragic hero because she incites the action of the play, makes a tragic mistake, and suffers dearly for it. Her rebellion against Creon's unjust civil law causes her to suffer and die. And, let's face it, she makes the tragic mistake of being stubborn even after she proves her point. She goes to her death full of tragic hubris (pride), a romantic zealot with a death wish.
Gertrude and Ophelia get caught in the cross-fire between the tragic heroes Hamlet and Claudius, but their roles are not enough to be classified as tragic heroines along side Antigone. Instead, I would classify them as supplients who provide vision of unmitigated suffering and helplessness. This is an archetypal term used by critic Northrop Frye, who kind of wrote the book on classifying characters.
Other similarities:
- All three die, obviously, but their deaths can all be blamed on the state (unjust laws, kings).
- All three are blind: Antigone to her pride; Gertrude to her son and husband and Ophelia to her father.
Differences:
- Antigone and Ophelia suicide, but Gertrude's death is murder
- Antigone and Ophelia are victims of incest, but not Gertrude (who commits it herself). Antigone's family is cursed by incest: she is the daughter/sister of her brother/father Oedipus. Ophelia is caught up in Hamlet's revenge against incest and adultery, not to mention her brother's and father's incestuous-like jealousy of her and Hamlet.