Thus, the nobility of Antigone's character lies in her reluctance to condemn her sister, whereas her tragic flaw lies in her fanatical devotion to the men in her family, to the point that she wishes to lie with her brother's corpse.

Antigone's fall comes when she is caught burying Polyneices' corpse, and the fact that her subservience to patriarchy is the precise reason for this fall is revealed in Creon's response. When Creon condemns Antigone to her early grave, but before Ismene enters in her attempt to claim responsibility, Creon tell Antigone that she should "Then go down to the dead. If you must love, / love them. No woman's going to govern me" (599-600). Thus, it is Antigone's devotion to honoring men which gets her arrested, and it is the cultural patriarchy of her society which condemns her to being buried alive, perfectly illustrating how Antigone's own tragic flaw...
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