Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T11:42:38.871Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Antigone's Mirrors: Reflections on Moral Madness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2020

Abstract

Sophocles's Antigone continues to attract attention for its portrayal of the themes of moral agency and sexual difference. In this paper I argue that the contradictory factors which constitute Antigone's social identity work against the possibility of assessing her actions as either “virtuous” or not. I challenge readings of the play which suggest either that individual moral agency is sexually neutral or that women's action is necessarily and simply in direct opposition to the interests of the public sphere.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1992 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Berg, Elizabeth. 1982. The third woman. Diacritics 12(Summer): 1120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Briffault, Robert. The mothers. In The woman's encyclopedia of myths and secrets, ed. Walker, Barbara G.New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Cameron, Averil and Kuhrt, Amelie eds., 1983. Images of women in antiquity. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Camus, Albert. 1967. The myth of Sisyphus. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Cantrella, Eva. 1985. Dangling virgins: Myth ritual and the place of women in ancient Greece. In The female body in Western culture, ed. Suleiman, Susan Rubin. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Diprose, Rosalyn. 1991. In excess: The body and the habit of sexual difference. Hypatia 6(3): 156–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eastern, Susan. 1984. Functionalism and feminism in Hegel's political thought. Radical Philosophy 38(Summer): 28.Google Scholar
Eliot, George. 1963. Essays of George Eliot. Pirmey, Thomas ed. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Elshtain, Jean Bethke. 1983. Antigone's daughters: Reflections on female identity and the state. In Families, Politics & Public Policy: A Feminist Dialogue on Women and the State, ed. Diamond, Irene. New York: Longmans.Google Scholar
Feral, Josette. 1978. The irony of the tribe. Diacritics 8(Fall): 214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1979. Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. New York: Vintage Press.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1980. Two Lectures. In Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings 1972–1977, ed. Gordon, Colin. Brighton: Harvester Press.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1986. The use of pleasure. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1986. The care of the self. New York: Campion Books.Google Scholar
Gilligan, Carol. 1982. In a different voice: Psychological theories of women's development. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Girard, Rene. 1977. Violence and the sacred. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Hegel, G.W.F. 1949. The phenomenology of mind. Bailey, J. B., trans. London: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Irigaray, Luce. 1985. The eternal irony of the community. In Speculum of the Other Woman, trans. Gill, Gillian C.Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Irigaray, Luce. 1986. The fecundity of the caress. In Face to face with Levinas, ed. Cohen, Richard A.Albany: S.U.N.Y.Google Scholar
Irigaray, Luce. 1991. The necessity for sexuate rights. David Macey trans, ed. Whitford, Margaret. [author: please provide data of publication; we cannot find any data under this title].Google Scholar
Jones, Kathleen B. 1988. On authority: Or, why women are not entitled to speak. In Feminism & Foucault: Reflections on resistance, ed. Diamond, Irene and Quimby, Lee. Boston: Northeastern University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. 1964. The groundwork of the metaphysics of morals, trans. Paton, H. J.New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Klinsky, Matt. N.d. The play within the play: Hegel's Antigone. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Knox, Bernard. 1964. The heroic temper: Studies in Sophoclean tragedy. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Lederer, Wolfgang. The fear of women. In The woman's encyclopedia of myths and secrets, ed. Walker, Barbara G.New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Lefkowitz, Mary. 1983. Influential women. In Images of women in antiquity, ed. Cameron, A. and Kuhrt, A.London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Morgan, Kathryn Pauly. 1987. Women and moral madness. In Science, morality and feminist theory, ed. Hanen, Marcia and Nielson, Kai. Reprinted in Feminist Perspectives: Philosophical Essays on Methods and Morals, ed. Lorraine Code, Sheila Mullett, and Christine Overall. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha. 1986. The fragility of goodness: Luck and ethics in Greek tragedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Olivier, Christiane. 1989. Jocasta's children: The imprint of the mother. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Pradel, Ruth. 1983. Women: Model for possession by Greek daemons. In Images of women in antiquity, ed. Cameron, A. and Kuhrt, A.London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Shklar, Judith N. 1971. Hegel's “Phenomenology”: An elegy for Hellas. In Hegel's political philosophy, ed. Pelczynski, Z. A.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sophocles, . 1984. Antigone in The three Theban plays, trans. Fagels, Robert. New York: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Suleiman, Susan Rubin ed., 1985. The female body in western culture. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Walker, Barbara G. 1983. The woman's encyclopedia of myths and secrets. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Wagner, Steven. N.d. Antigone's reasons. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Whaley, Joachim ed., 1981. Mirrors of mortality studies in the social theory of death. London: Europa.Google Scholar
Whitford, Margaret. 1991a. Luce higaray: Philosophy in the feminine. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Whitford, Margaret. ed. 1991b. The lrigaray reader. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar