The position of women is a central issue in three plays written thousands of year apart--Antigone, A Doll's House, and Trifles. Each play sets up a contrast between the power of women and the secondary role they are asked to play in society.
Even a superficial reading of the Antigone and an examination of the mythology behind it points to the fact that Antigone's character has been formed from her relationship with her father. Antigone contrasts with the more traditional female role taken by her sister, Ismene. Clearly, Antigone goes beyond the usual role of women in Theban society because she has her own moral sense, a very strong one, strong enough to challenge Creon. The social value of compliance conflicts with the equal values of courage and loyalty, and Antigone is loyal to her brother but transgresses against the legal injunction of the state. Ismene, Antigone's sister, suggests that she comply with the order of Creon because that is what is expected. This conflicts with what Antigone feels the gods have ordered her to do in the name of her brother, and she is not willing to have what she knows is right swept aside by the admonition that she is only a woman. She says to her sister,
Be what you want to: but that man shall I
bury. For me, the doer, death is best.
Friend shall I lie with him, yes friend with friend,
when I have dared the crime of piety (Grene 161).
Antigone follows her own conscience and is destroyed.
In A Doll's House, Ibsen challenges the assumptions about the place of women in society and finds that the confinement of women has produced a situation under which men also cannot be truly free, though they may not realize it. Nora is a woman who has an understanding that extends beyond the limited education she has been allowed to have by her father and husband. Her childish innocence turns to resolve by the end of the play. The play represents the state of relations between men and...