Compare loyalties in "Antigone" and "A Doll's House"

Essay by brown01marieCollege, UndergraduateA+, October 2007

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In Sophocles', "Antigone", and Ibsen's, "A Doll House", the theme of loyalty is very clear. In this paper I will compare the loyalty of Antigone and Nora. In these plays there are three main focuses of loyalty that stand out. There is the loyalty to family. The second focus is the loyalty to the gods to Antigone and the loyalty of the common law to Nora. Finally, the third focus is the loyalty to one's self.

In Sophocles' "Antigone", the following lines demonstrate how the main female character, Antigone shows her loyalty to family when she decides to bury her brother, Polynices, even though the King, Creon, has forbid his burial:I'll bury him myself.

And even if I die in the act, that death will be a glory.

I'll lie with the one I love and loved by him- (Sophocles 85-87)Antigone knows the outcome of her actions, but, to her, her brother having the proper burial is worth her own life.

She shows that her loyalty lies with her family, not the king.

This theme also correlates with Ibsen's main female character, Nora. When Nora learns of her husband illness and that the only thing to heal him is to take him South, she loses sight in her own welfare and takes a loan out to pay for the trip. She lies to Trovold and tells him that her father gave her the money. Her loyalty for family shows in the following lines by Ibsen, when she put the thought of how she would pay the money back behind the thought of losing her husband:And then I found other ways of making money. Last winter I was luckyenough to get a lot of copying to do. I locked myself in and sat writingevery evening till late in...