Giving Voice to the Silenced: Gender and Oppression in Antigone and Death and the Maiden Anonymous 12th Grade

Literature is a powerful art form that can give visibility to those who are ignored in our society, making the reader reflect on societal problems and feel empathy for the oppressed. The first literary text that will be analyzed in this regard is the Greek tragedy “Antigone”, written by Sophocles during Ancient Greece. The play is set after a civil war, where the new king, Creon, has condemned Polynices to remain unburied after his death because he brought a foreign army to battle with his brother for the throne. Antigone, Polynices’ sister and the protagonist of the play, believes it is their moral duty to bury her brother, while Creon sees this as a threat to his authority. The other literary work is “Death and the Maiden”, a dramatic play written by Ariel Dorfman and published in 1990. This play is set after the Chilean dictatorship and has Paulina Salas as the protagonist. Paulina is grappling with the internal conflict of forgiving the man she believes tortured and raped her while she was kidnapped, or taking justice into her own hands. Both Sophocles and Dorfman give voice to the oppressed in their plays, demonstrating how gender roles oppress the female protagonists and giving visibility to the victims of oppressive...