SAILING TOGETHER: THE AGONISTIC CONSTRUCTION OF SISTERHOOD IN SOPHOCLES' ANTIGONE

I argue that, instead of just behaving like sisters, Antigone and Ismene become sisters13 by renovating their bond as a new partisan relationship between two female subjects who share the same responsibility towards their kin and towards the city. I will demonstrate that, as equals and partners, they aim to narrate a different story from the one Creon is telling in order to secure his power, in which he links the memory of Polyneices to the blame of the civil war. In particular, I will analyze passages from the two agones between the sisters (lines 1–99 and lines 536–60), which prove that both sisters, in different ways, either invoke or call into question their own sororal bond by using linguistic expedients.