by Vivian Bruce
Women have been squeezed into gender roles and oppressed for millennia, as is apparent by the similarities between Sophocles’ Antigone written in ancient Greece, and Mary Wollstonecraft’s Mary, A Fiction, written twenty-two centuries later. Despite originating from vastly different eras and cultures, they both supply valuable insight into how women were treated. In both Mary, A Fiction, and Antigone it is clear that the cultures viewed women as being lesser, depicting them as unreasoning dependents on the men at the centre of their lives. The titular characters both reject these narrow roles, instead taking on more traditionally masculine abilities and roles to resist the men that have power over them. Despite these similarities, the authors differ greatly in their views about women: Wollstonecraft is clearly a feminist, Sophocles is not.
Mary and Antigone are trapped in cultures that view them as subservient and less capable of reason than the surrounding men. In the advertisement that precedes the novel proper, Wollstonecraft states that within the fiction, “the mind of a woman, who has thinking powers is displayed” because “the female organs have been thought too weak for this arduous employment” (Wollstonecraft 76). This sets the stage for the world in which Wollstonecraft writes and Mary lives: one that believes women are incapable of reason. Wollstonecraft and her protagonist share a first name and the experience of living in an oppressive society with limited options. Mary has no educational opportunities, aside from dance, compared to her brother who is “sent to school” (W 82). Similarly, while she is left at home, her husband leaves immediately after their wedding to “finish his studies at one of the foreign universities” (W 95). Antigone is likewise reminded of her place by her sister Ismene who tells her they are “not born to contend with men” (Sophocles 62). The very fabric of their society prioritizes men. When her brothers die, it is their uncle Creon who is the male “next of kin to the dead,” and so gets “the throne and all its powers” (S 67) rather than Antigone or Ismene, their immediate siblings. Creon also repeatedly talks down to Antigone and calls her a “worthless woman” (S 89): he does not respect her reason and choices but calls her “mad” and claims she “has been that way since she was born” (S 88), although it is unclear if this is an attempt to undermine her or if this is his actual belief. Either way, this lack of respect and opportunity in both worlds leads to dependence on men.
Mary and Antigone are expected to prioritize and be dependent on the men in their lives. Mary begins her life under the power of her father until one day “over a bottle” he and a landowning friend decide to “unit[e] the two estates” (W 93) by marrying off their children. After the wedding, Mary is reliant on her husband, as “the man she had promised to obey” (W 100) and who must “permit her” (W 147) to go places. She is transferred from the power of one man to another. Antigone is also expected to be reliant on men. She sacrifices her marriage due to her defiance and instead goes to “wed the lord of the dark waters” (S 102). She sees even her death as a marriage; other characters agree, calling her “the bride of Death” (S 121). Antigone and Mary are living in cultures that demand women’s dependence. To live authentically they must resist and refuse to conform.
Mary resists these constraints by using reason like a man; however, this contributes to the text’s negative portrayal of other women. Her desire to push beyond her limited status started young when she began to educate herself:
As she had learned to read, she perused with avidity every book that came her way. Neglected in every respect, and left to the operations of her own mind, she considered every thing that came under her inspection, and learned to think. (W 82)
Ignored as a child, Mary is not immediately constrained by the narrow expectations of womanhood and so is able to independently develop understanding. Her passion for reading leads her to “study authors whose works were addressed to the understanding” (W 93). She also chooses to spend her time exploring the many details of nature like “the beautiful tints the gleams of sunshine gave to the distant hills” (W 88) and she begins to “consider the Great First Cause” (W 84). By learning from the world around her, Mary acquires an ability that is normally reserved for men: reasoning. However, when Mary takes on this supposedly masculine ability, it elevates masculinity and demotes the other women in the text by comparison. Mary’s desire for an equal mind is not satisfied by her friend Ann whose mind she considers to be “not congenial” (W 96). Instead it is satisfied by a man, Henry, whose conversation is “infinitely superior” to the others around her and whose conversation “unfold[s]” the “faculties of her soul” (W 108). Mary’s view of Ann could be in part due to harsh judgment, but is also due to the author’s characterization of the other women—including Mary’s own mother, “a mere machine” (W 77)—as shallow, emotional and uneducated. Wollstonecraft writes Mary to be a female genius, and her special excellence is heightened in comparison to the many “noughts…in the female world” (W 79) around her. Mary’s ability to use the masculine quality of reason when given the right opportunity demonstrates what women are capable of, but by making Mary a clear exception, the text puts down other women.
Mary also takes on a conventionally masculine role by being a provider for others, regularly helping the disadvantaged by supplying funds and caring for the sick. She does this especially for her friend Ann: she does all she can to be a provider for Ann’s poor family financially and “shield[s] her from poverty” (W 96-97), taking over the role of Ann’s father who “spent his fortune” and by “dying, left his wife, and five small children, to live on a very scanty pittance” (W 86). She also thrives when Ann is dependent on her, so that if Mary is upset with her, all Mary must do is “imagine that she looked sickly or unhappy, and then all her tenderness would return like a torrent” (W 87). Many men considered delicate and sickly women as the beautiful ideal because they were dependent and could be looked after, and in this sense Mary clearly feels the same way about Ann. Mary takes on the role a man would likely have otherwise taken in Ann’s life, by financially supporting her and especially loving her when she is dependent.
Mary uses this masculine role of provider rather than dependent to resist her husband. When Ann is ill Mary takes her to Lisbon for the air, choosing it “on account of its being further removed from the only person she wished not to see” (W 100–101), her husband. In the letter to him she writes “I must—I will go,” and “she would have added ‘you would very much oblige me by consenting’ but her heart revolted” (W 100). She refuses to ask permission as is expected, and instead only informs him of her plan. Even giving her life meaning outside of male influence is an act of resistance. Aside from the occasional letter to a hated husband, there are no men in her life until she meets Henry, who has no power over her and treats her as an equal. In fact, it is she who eventually has power over Henry when he falls ill and she takes care of him, rather than the opposite. Mary gives her time to helping the poor, cultivating her understanding, and spending time with Ann; contrary to her expected role, she does not put a man at the center of her world. Mary’s “friendship for Ann occupie[s] her heart” (W 99) and when Ann gets sick, Mary says that “her comfort, almost her existence depend[s] on the recovery of the invalid she wish[es] to attend” (W 100). In the end, after much loss and grief, Mary does eventually consent to live with her husband, but agrees only after he “permit[s] her to spend one year, travelling from place to place” (W 147). Even after this she does not live with him as the center of her world. Instead, she focuses on acts of community service and waits for her entrance into “that world where there is neither marrying, nor giving in marriage” (W 148). Mary seems to find meaning by living for others throughout the fiction, but she refuses to live for men who treat her as lesser.
Like Mary, Antigone also takes on a masculine role to resist the men who have power in her life to the detriment of other women. However, she does so much more openly, overtly challenging the king, Creon, and becoming an immediate political threat. When she is brought before the king for her crime of burying her traitorous brother, with unwavering courage she proclaims: “I did it. I don’t deny a thing” (S 81). This defiance makes her a threat to Creon’s power, especially because she claims that his laws are against the “great unwritten, unshakable traditions” (S 82) of the gods. By not only defying Creon’s laws but openly challenging their validity, Antigone is a political threat, doubly so because of her gender. She is a woman stepping outside her limited role, which threatens Creon’s masculinity. He says, “I am not the man, not now: she is the man / if this victory goes to her and she goes free” (S 83). Creon insists he must “never be rated / inferior to a woman, never” (S 94), so he feels he must deal with Antigone harshly and swiftly. He cannot have a woman best him, so he wants Antigone to drop the masculine role and for her and her sister to “act like women” (S 90). However, Antigone adamantly denies Ismene’s involvement. Antigone mistreats her own sister because, when Ismene does not immediately support Antigone’s suicidal quest, she calls her a “coward” (S 60), and when Ismene offers to help her by keeping her plan a secret, Antigone says she will “hate [her] all the more for silence” (S 64). When, despite her innocence, Ismene is accused by Creon, she is willing to “share the guilt” (S 86) and wants to “die beside” (S 87) Antigone. Antigone brutally rejects her loving sister, saying she has “no love for a friend who loves in words alone” and does not want her to “lay claim to what [she] never touched” (S 87). Antigone abuses her sister who was willing to lay down her life for her. The closest thing to an apology she gives is agreeing that mocking Ismene “doesn’t help [her] now” (S 87) and that she gets “no pleasure from it, / only pain” (S 88). By taking on the masculine role of defiance, she is willing to hurt her sister. Ismene is a woman who does not meet the standards of the female protagonist in a male dominated world, much like Ann’s inability to be a “congenial” (W 96) mind to Mary. Unlike Mary who lives for herself, it could be argued that Antigone lives for the sake of a man, her dead brother, and not herself. However, it is clear that she acts this way because of her desire to be remembered and avoid “death without glory” (S 64). Antigone took on a masculine role to defy Creon, even when it hurt her sister, and it seems she did it for her own goals.
Despite Mary and Antigone’s similar approaches to resisting the powerful men in their lives and claiming agency, the authors’ views about women differ because Wollstonecraft is a feminist, unlike Sophocles. Wollstonecraft focuses on what women are capable of and in many ways presents Mary as an ideal woman who is the best of both worlds. Mary has the positive masculine traits of being independent and intelligent, and the positive feminine trait of being in tune with her emotions, leading her to feel deeply for others and be content with simplicity. This is made clear when Mary writes “a rhapsody on sensibility” which includes the line: “is any sensual gratification to be compared to that feeling of the eyes moistened after having comforted the unfortunate?” (W 135). Despite her tendency to look down on the women around her, Mary’s mix of positive traits, her suffering, and the small human details of her life, make her an empathetic protagonist who can be related to by both the men and women of the time. Perhaps her opinions on the flaws in the women around her are meant to be relatable to male readers who have similar complaints, and make Mary seem even more special. Although the text steps on other women to do it, the author builds empathy for a female protagonist capable of reason and independence when given the right opportunities. This allows Wollstonecraft to bring attention to how the inequality between sexes is unfair and unreasonable, making her a feminist fighting for a better future for women.
In contrast, feminism is clearly not the goal of Sophocles’ Antigone. The play is focused on the politics of duty to family versus polis, not women’s rights. Creon does mistreat Antigone because of her gender, but he is not presented as any more incorrect then Antigone herself by the narrative. Antigone says:
If this is the pleasure of the gods, /
Once I suffer I will know I was wrong, /
But if these men are wrong, let them suffer /
Nothing worse than what they mete out to me. (S 106)
In the end they both suffer for their stubbornness, Antigone by dying young, unmarried, and “tormented” (S 106), and Creon by having both his son and his wife kill themselves. This makes them both equally “wrong”. Because Creon is written as a tragic figure rather than a villain, his sexism is presented as more of a motivation, rather than being condemned. Unlike Mary, Antigone is not characterized as a sympathetic role model: her flaws are clear in her cruelty to her sister and her recklessness. Although they make her less likable, these traits could perhaps be forgiven as examples of her being a realistic person. However, this does not seem to be the case, because the chorus calls her “wretched, child of a wretched father” (S 78) and reminds the reader that Antigone is the daughter of Oedipus, who famously killed his father and slept with his mother. This association once again makes it clear she isn’t meant to be any kind of role model. This is especially true considering Sophocles writes Antigone’s obsession with her brother throughout the play as having incestuous undertones. She is willing to die for him rather than live for her husband, uses marriage language in reference to joining her brother among the dead, and comments that she would “never have taken this ordeal upon [her]self” if a “husband died, exposed and rotting” (S 105). Considering her heritage, her obsession and special treatment of her dead brother over her living betrothed and sister could be read as having uncomfortable implications. Thus, by making her as equally wrong as Creon and by clearly not making her a role model, Sophocles does not present Antigone’s brave resistance as a good thing, making him not a feminist.
In both Antigone and Mary, A Fiction, the protagonists are living in cultures that see women as being lesser and unable to reason, while expecting them to depend on and prioritize the men. Mary gains the masculine ability of reasoning, but in doing so invalidates the women around her. She also takes on the masculine role of provider and uses that role to resist her husband and the expectations placed on her. Very similarly, Antigone also takes on a masculine role to resist men of power and harms her sister in the process; however, she does so much more openly than Mary and outright challenges the king. Although their protagonists use very similar strategies with similar effects on the women around them, Wollstonecraft’s and Sophocles’ goals are very different. Wollstonecraft uses her fiction to create an empathetic character that progresses the feminist argument that women have equal thinking capability to men. Sophocles, however, does not cast Antigone’s actions in a positive light. These similarities and differences make it abundantly clear that investigating the way a narrative treats its female characters is crucial in determining if a text is promoting equal rights. Gender inequality is still an issue; therefore, authors must approach with care the implications of how and with what intent they write female characters, so that oppressive gender roles can be discarded.
Works Cited
Sophocles. The Three Theban Plays: Antigone, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus. Translated by Robert Fagles, Penguin Literature, 1984.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. Mary, A Fiction and The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria. Edited by Michelle Faubert, Broadview Press, 2012.