Throughout the ages, many females have helped make changes that have helped
benefit woman. Many have been looked up to as martyrs for taking a stand in what they
believe in. Susan B. Anthony and the character Antigone from the Greek tragedy, The
Oedipus Cycle by Sophocles both were two courageous woman. During their time, they
defied the idea of women and helped them step forth and fight for equality. These two
women lived in a male dominant society, filled with sexism.
Antigone is widely thought of as a tragic hero and martyr. She was a young
princess who faced many hardships in her life. She was cursed with being the daughter
of Oedipus, the king that fulfilled his oracle of killing his father and marrying his mother
and caused a plague on Thebes. She later defies King Creon of his cruel judgment
forbidding the burial of her brother Polynieces who attempt to gain the crown from his
brother Eteocles. Antigone fights for her belief that her brother deserves a burial and
preaches the God's law. Against the pleas of her weak sister Ismene and her fiancé
Haimon she stands up to the government. She seems to fit the part in light of the fact
that she is executed for doing what she feels is right. According to Hathom, she "Takes
into consideration death and the reality that may be beyond death." Antigone did not
fear the authority and believed in the law of the God's.
Susan B. Anthony was a liberal Quaker and dedicated basic activist. She
opposed the use of liquor and advocated the immediate end to slavery. During the
American Civil War, she founded the Women's Loyal League to fight for liberation of the
slaves. After the end of Reconstruction she protested the violence inflicted on blacks
and was one of the few to urge full participation of blacks in the suffrage movement.
In 1851, her work for women's rights began. She concentrated on r...