The disappearance of Ismene

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Published: Jul 6, 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/ethiki.30736
Keywords:
Hegel; Kierkegaard; Antigone; Ismene; Conflict; Curse; Ancient Tragedy; Psychological Drama
Theodoros Zervopoulos
Abstract

This article explores the intentional omission of the character Ismene from the philosophical interpretations of Sophocles' Antigone by Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel and Søren Kierkegaard. The author argues that Hegel’s theory of the collapse of the Greek world—centered on the absolute conflict between state law (Creon) and divine/family law (Antigone)—would be undermined by Ismene's presence, as her more conventional and cautious female behavior contradicts Antigone's public agency. Similarly, the study examines how Kierkegaard transforms the tragedy into a modern psychological drama of hereditary guilt, where Ismene's exclusion is necessary to maintain Antigone as the sole, tragic keeper of the family's "secret". By deconstructing these philosophical "disappearances," the paper reveals how both thinkers tailored the original myth to serve their specific aesthetic and existential frameworks.

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