... mother, the same father." In other words, both brothers slew his brother; both have committed the tragic crime of fratricide. In the face of such evil, who can judge one brother above another? That is the essence of the tragedy of Thebes, of the confusion of familial roles. Antigone is the play's tragic heroine. In the first moments of the play, Antigone is opposed to her radiant sister Ismene. Unlike her beautiful and docile sister, Antigone is scrawny, sallow, withdrawn, and recalcitrant brat. Like Anouilh's Eurydice, the heroine of his play Eurydice, and Joan of Arc, Antigone has a boyish physique and curses her girlhood. She is the antithesis of the melodramatic heroine, the archetypal blond ingénue as embodied in Ismene. Antigone has always been difficult, terrorizing Ismene as a child, always insisting on the gratification of her desires, refusing to "understand" the limits placed on her. Her envy of Ismene ...

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