The Burial At Thebes Compared To Antigone

In, The Burial at Thebes, Seamus Heaney’s version of Sophocles’ play Antigone, Antigone and Ismene oppose each other with their opinions over the treatment of their dead brothers. They are the antithesis of each other based on their morals and actions, and further this destination with the way they talk and treat each other. These differences, however, highlight their devotion to their respective priorities. Antigone and Ismene are different in ways to highlight each other’s motivations in life. Antigone, as the original title character, can be characterized as the basic heroine, being impulsive, courageous, and morally driven. When Creon makes his edict to ban the burial of Polyneices, Antigone tells Ismene, “‘Whoever breaks this law,/ I’ll have them …show more content…
She would rather follow the laws of their new king, and do what is better for herself in the moment than challenge the situation at hand. When Antigone tells her that the ruling against burying Polyneices is to test them, she tells her, “Antigone,/ What do you mean, a test?/If things have gone this far/ What is there I can do?”(8) This is a very characterizing response, that after everything that has happened, Oedipus, Jocasta, Eteocles, and Polyneices’ deaths, she feels that there is little left to lose, and nothing they can do. She also refuses to help Antigone with the burial of Polyneices, at the risk of their family’s reputation and her own life; she explains, “Dishonour them I do not./ But nor am I strong enough/ To defy the laws of the land”(11). After Antigone goes through with her plan to bury Polyneices, Ismene then claims to have helped her. This is probably because she felt as though she would now lose her whole family, and would rather join them in the afterlife, than be alone alive. This shows how, compared to Antigone, Ismene is much more cowardly and is more self-preserving, even when willing death, she is only in her own