In which play did Sophocles write:
“Anarchy- show me a greater crime in all the earth! She, she destroys cities, rips up houses, breaks the ranks of spearmen into headlong rout... Therefore we must defend the men who live by law, never let some woman triumph over us. Better to fall from power, if fall we must, at the hands of man- never be rated inferior to a woman, never.”
Explanation
Answer: C - The quotation is from Sophocles’ tragedy Anti gone, which was written in 441 BCE. Anti gone was part of the Oedipus trio of plays chronicling the family of Oedipus, who (unknowingly, at first) fulfills a prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother. Antigone is one of the children produced by the union between Oedipus and his mother, Jocasta. The family is doomed to a tragic existence, but Anti gone becomes a feminist figure who rebels against the patriarchal establishment. The quotation is delivered in the play by the character Creon, the king of Thebes, who is also Antigone’s uncle. At first, he is speaking about anarchy, but his personification of it as a feminine force ultimately alludes to Antigone’s own empowerment and attempt to rebel against the male power structure.
