Paper 1

Ben Williams

Mrs. Brady

EGL 102

1 October 2011

Inequality

            For many years since the beginning of time women were treated unequal compared to that of men. In the stories A Streetcar Named Desire by Williams and Antigone by Sophocles’ examples of such gender inequality. Since both stories took place when women were not what they are today such as having the freedom and independent lifestyles in today’s society. The stories represent some great comparisons to how they both are true to these inequalities for women. Antigone takes place in the B.C. time period and A Streetcar during the 1940’s displays how both are great stories to still be read today and the authors gave a new outlook on women and there equality.

            Antigone is about a tragic hero name Antigone whose two brothers died at war with each other. Polyneices who fought against Eteocles the for the throne had his body sentenced to remain on the streets for the birds to eat. Antigone felt differently about this law and decided to bury him and was sentenced to death. The amazing part of what she did was she is a female. Again back then females were not treated the same and that was not expected from a female. In fact when the king Creon was looking for the one who opposed him he expected it to be a man but happen to be Antigone responsible, like when he said “Only if you don’t bring light those men who done this…”(Sophocles, 1139). Another event is when Sentry returned with the news of it being Antigone he didn’t want to accept the idea of her doing so and even questioned it when he said “Do you know what are saying? Do you mean it” (Sophocles, 1141). After finding out it was Antigone she was brought in for questioning. Antigone accepted her accusations but for good reason, because she believed his order was wrong this is confirmed on page 1142 in Sophocles Antigone said “I did not believe your proclamation had such power to enable one who will someday die to override God’s ordinances, unwritten and secure”. This was maybe the strongest line of the story because she displayed that though she was a female she will stick up for what is right not only because she feels that way but because the god’s would want that.

            In A Streetcar Named Desire it was a different form of gender bias. It was still an unfair unequal time in history but just a different scenario. There is Blanche the crazy sister who comes to visit her sister Stella and husband Stanley because she got fired and basically evicted from her home town in Belle Reve. Stanley is a man among men who is different from the type of guys Stella and Blanche used to date back on Belle Reve, Stella states this on page 1171 Williams “you’ll get along fine, if you’ll just try not to-well-compare him with men that we went out with at home”. Since Blanche is not used to this kind of behavior she tries to drive Stella away from Stanley, but she is in fact madly in love with him as he is with her, and probably would not be able to function without each other. Through the play gender bias is a conflict with both women on different sides of the table. Stella being the usual typical female who is depending on the man and listens and complies to his every will, while Blanche is not and does not agree with Stanley’s way of affection, but at the same time she is a little crazy probably because she lost her husband who was a homosexual who killed himself after being exposed and is very promiscuous from the men that she had affair with in the flamingo hotel or when she had an affair with the young boy when she was a teacher. This made Blanche want to hide herself from the light which was her true self and live in her ugly past which was the darkness. This is why she lived and searched for compliments and to live in her own world like when she told Mitch “I don’t want realism. I want magic!” (Williams, 1223).

            Both these stories did deal with the Gender bias conflict in the stories. I would suggest Stella was much like Antigone’s sister Ismene and Antigone is more like Blanche amongst the gender bias route. Ismene and Stella were both typical females of the inequality error. Both females were in the background citizens, and did things to please other. Ismene at first disagreed with her sisters acts and says “you are so headstrong. Creon has forbidden it.”(Sophocles, 1131) opposing her sisters decision. Stella acted similarly by telling Stanley that his idea about Blanche doing the things she did was lies. Ismene later gets caught and accused of her sister Antigone’s crime, and though she is not in a apart of the crime and disagreed on it she wants be a part of the summoning of death with Antigone and states “I did it, yes- if she will say I did” (Sophocles, 1144) which jus suggests that she is trying to side with her sister in front of the king just to make Antigone’s actions seem justified.

Stella however was not open about her feeling toward Stanley’s words about Blanche but you could tell she felt like some where true for example on page 1217 Sophocles Stella “ sadly and doubtfully from the kitchen says do your Blanche?” then while the scene is being described is embarrassed and sad. As for Antigone and Blanche Antigone has her motive and decision from the start of the play, you could say she is strong headed and Blanche was the same way upon Stanley. These two females were not typical females of their inequality error. Antigone decided on going against the law and burying her brother. Doing an illegal act and knowing the consequences she decided to follow through because of how she felt and what she needed to express such as what the right thing to do is. Blanche did the same thing but she had an affair with a seventeen-year-old-boy. (Sophocles 1214), doing so to remind her of her young husband who killed himself that she was “not just love him but worshipped the ground he walked on!”(Williams, 1215), which is her reason for doing her illegal acts.

WORK CITED PAGE

ALISON BOOTH. THE INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE. :W. W. NORTON

01/29/2010