Read the excerpt from "The Royal House of Thebes." Antigone and Ismene heard with horror what Creon had decided. To Ismene, shoc
king as it was, overwhelming her with anguish for the pitiful dead body and the lonely, homeless soul, it seemed, nevertheless, that nothing could be done except to acquiesce [to accept without protest]. She and Antigone were utterly alone. All Thebes was exulting that the man who had brought war upon them should be thus terribly punished. "We are women," she told her sister. "We must obey. We have no strength to defy the State." Which archetype does Ismene best represent? the villain the heroine the warrior the coward
In the excerpt from "The Royal House of Thebes," Ismene is portrayed as the opposite of her sister Antigone, who is the heroine of the story. She is afraid to disobey Creon's order not to give burial to her brother Polyneices, and believes women should not withstand the commandments of powerful men.
