September 25, 2001
As much as society tries to deny the fact that the family that one comes from determines their fate, in almost every case this very fact is true. Today, we see how infants who are born into wealthy families are treated differently than children who are born into drug and disease-stricken poverty. Higher classed people stand out in society on both a local and national level much more than the average middle class working family.
Two Views
In Sophocles’ play, Antigone, Antigone is unable to hide who she is,
and the family she comes from determines the way she is treated among her
peoples. Likewise, in William Faulkner’s, A Rose for Emily, a woman who
was forever protected by her father and was never given the opportunity to
flourish on her own, becomes a hermit to her own society. The family she was
born into created barriers that she could not overcome. Birthright is the
driving force that both Antigone and Emily face in their stories, and the
authors, Sophocles and Faulkner both use this concept to convey a strong
message.
Antigone
Antigone is a young woman whose moral background leads her to go against the
wishes of the king to bury her brother, Polyneices. Sophocles uses Antigone as
a character who undergoes an irreversible change in judgment and as a result,
ends up dying. Antigone is hero, and she stands for honor, and divinity.
Because Antigone’s parents were Oedipus and Iacaste, she was born into a family
of power; something that she could not change. At times, Sophocles leads the
reader into thinking Antigone wishes she was not who she was. Ismene,
Antigone’s sister, refuses to help Antigone because (as she states) “I have no
strength to break laws that were made for the public good” (462). Ismene does
not share the heroic strength that Antigone has, for in the same conversation,
Antigone says, “You have made your choice, you can be what you want to be. But
I will bury him; and if I must die, I say that this crime is holy” (462).
Ismene was ashamed of what the public would think of her if she, the niece of
King Creon, would bury Polyneices against Creon’s rule. Antigone, on the other
hand, did not worry about this as she felt the “right” to her family, would be
to properly bury her brother. She, unlike Ismene, did not care about her family
name and keeping it as a powerful attribute to her life. Sophocles explores the
idea of how a character’s duty to her family is in reality a sacrifice to
herself. Antigone uses her moral judgment and unlike her sister who is afraid
of the shame she might experience, Antigone uses her heroine style to stand up
for what she believed in. As the daughter of Oedipus, she did have the
power to do so, and she put that power to use.
Emily
In William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily, birthright is discussed in a more
family oriented way. Emily is a woman who for her entire life, was cared for by
her father who never gave her the freedom to become her own person. Her father
was possessive in that he never allowed Emily to have a life of her own, so when
her father had passed away, she was unable to survive, civilly, on her own. As
a result, she kept herself in seclusion, refusing to adapt to the changing
environment that surrounded her. Faulkner speaks of the importance of
birthright in the way that Emily was dominated by her father for the first
thirty years of her life, and her family name was known throughout town because
of who she was, and being known as the troubled woman who refused to pay her
taxes. Even after his death, Emily’s father played a huge role in her life.
The crayon portrait of her father, which appears repeatedly in the story,
symbolizes his continued presence of him in her life. Emily was a woman whose
repressed adult life left no room for her to grow and bloom like a rose. Her
life was pale and shade-less. Faulkner writes, “A thin, acrid pall as of the
tomb seemed to lie everywhere upon this room decked and furnished as for a
bridal: upon the valance curtains of faded rose color, upon the rose-shaded
lights, upon the dressing table, upon the delicate array of crystal and the
man’s toilet things backed with tarnished silver, silver so tarnished that the
monogram was obscured” (673). Because of her shaded life she had growing up,
always being in the shadow of her father, Emily never realized that the changing
world around her might actually benefit her life. “The newer generation became
the backbone and the spirit of the town” (671), but Emily never gave herself the
chance to realize this. Faulkner uses Emily’s life growing up with a dominating
father to express the power and conflict of birthright.
Conclusion
Sophocles and William Faulkner are writers accused of using a social aspect of
life to determine the right of a character. In Antigone, Antigone uses
the power of her family name to go against the wish of the King in order to
simply give her brother a proper burial. In A Rose for Emily, William
Faulkner shows the vast influence a father can have on his daughter. Even
though he is dead, his strong dominating presence is still very much alive in
Emily. The topic of birthright in both stories is apparent in that Antigone
goes against the common way only because of who she is, and Emily hides
herself from society because she does not know any other way to live.
Faulkner, William. A Rose for Emily. Taken from Abcarian and Koltz, “Literature: Reading and Writing the Human Experience.” St. Martins Press. 1998.
Sophocles. Antigone. Taken from Abcarian and Koltz, “Literature: Reading and Writing the Human Experience.” St. Martins Press. 1998.
Copyright 2001