Antigone Minor Characters Essay

While some say that minor characters are not important to fictional writing, minor characters play major literary roles, sometimes more so than the main characters. Minor characters can be used to fill in parts of the story that main characters cannot, and also act as the conceptual foundation of the literature. In fact, in Sophocles's play, Antigone, minor characters are utilized as the primary method of portraying the theme of the play to the audience, displayed through the way in which the character Ismene portrays the role of women, the way in which the character Choragus tells of the importance of fate, and the way in which the character Haemon is exemplified as an innocent loss of life due to the hubris of others.
Sophocles uses the character Ismene to represent the thematic role of women within the society of Antigone, through her dialogue with Antigone in the prologue of the play. As Ismene is attempting to convince Antigone to not bury Polyneices, she makes the point that they “cannot fight with men”(Sophocles Prologue.47), and that disobeying Creon will yield severe consequences, even more so than men would receive. This statement places women as a part of a secondary social role
This is exemplified in Sophocles’s play, Antigone, in which Sophocles uses the minor characters in order to convey the theme of the play, shown through Ismene’s portrayal of women’s societal roles, through Choragus depiction of fate, and through Haemon's loss of innocent life. In modern day society, people believe that major people such as the president have all control over the country. However, minor people, such as ordinary citizens hold majority of the power within society, and control to a large extent governmental decisions. This displays that minor societal roles have a major influence on society as a