Standing in Creon's shadow: Defining the female tragic hero

Defining the female tragic hero has been complicated by her standing as a woman in a patriarchal history. This thesis makes the case that the female tragic hero cannot be defined in the Aristotelian tradition, but rather must be defined on her own terms. Ultimately, we must overcome the engrained perceptions of the feminine and define a model of the tragic heroine using archetypes rather than social or cultural constraints. This tragic hero manifests the tension between feminine selfhood and societal expectations in a patriarchal society, and her subsequent downfall occurs because of the failure of the society that refuses to acknowledge her rather than her own hamartia. This model is then applied to several feminine characters---Antigone, Cleopatra, Hedda Gabler, Edna Pontellier and Sethe---that represent a broad sample of ancient and contemporary literature by both male and female authors.