Destabilizing Haemon: Radically Reading Gender and Authority in Sophocles’ Antigone1 PeTeR MilleR As Mark Griffith (1999, 51) has remarked, “Gender lies at the root of the problems of Antigone,” but much of that attention to gender has focused on analyzing Antigone (e.g., Griffith 2001, Žižek 2004), or the relationship of marriage and consummation in Haemon’s violent suicide (seaford 1987, 120–1; Griffith 1999, 339; ormand 1999, 79–98). While Haemon’s suicide has been understood as a sexual act, scholars have overlooked the inherent ambiguities in this performative action. by con- necting Haemon’s suicide to Antigone’s broader interest in alternative constructions of gender, i read here his multifarious and performative death as an indicator of gender’s fluidity and instability; Haemon prob- lematizes the construction of subjectivity, since it is intrinsically linked to gendered identity. Although the play ends conservatively (Griffith 1999, 56–7), readers and audiences are not obliged to accept this conclu- sion. Rather, Haemon’s actions in the play destabilize, at least, the binary and categorical construction of gender and sexuality and the hier- archical and repressive understanding of subjectivity, which remains, even at the tragedy’s conclusion, institutionalized. Through an interpre- tation that emphasizes the multiplicity of performativities and identities that cohere in Haemon, and the reception of his radical identity in the course of the tragedy, an alternative emerges that stresses ambiguity and anti-authoritarianism, instead of descriptivism and tyranny.2 Although there is a rich history of criticism that locates a confronta- tion between oikos and polis in Antigone (e.g., Hegel 1977; cf. sourvinou- inwood 1989, 137), or a confirmation of or challenge to kinship models (e.g., butler 2000, lacan 2000), my focus is on social identity and the relationship of gender, subjectivity, and authority. by defining Haemon’s suicide as a fundamentally ambiguous performative action, i underscore its malleability in the plot of the tragedy, and the ability of audiences both internal (e.g., the Theban dêmos) and external (e.g., the Athenian dêmos, and audiences and readers today) to find, in Haemon’s death, a potential escape from the strictures of authority. i begin with an analysis of the agôn between Creon and Haemon (631–780), in which Creon’s Helios, vol. 41 no. 2, 2014 © Texas Tech University Press 163 Copyright TTUP 164 Helios challenge to Haemon’s social and gendered identity begins. Having inter- preted this interaction in light of Creon’s increasingly totalitarian control over the polis, i move to the Messenger’s speech, Creon’s actions prior to entering the cave (1192–1218), and finally, the interaction between Hae- mon and Creon in the cave with the suicide itself (1226–43). by situat- ing the confrontation in the cave as a continuation of the prior agôn, i stress how Creon’s tyranny has undermined the ability of Haemon to claim a social and gendered identity outside the bounds of his regime. in the conclusion, however, i reread the suicide scene, taking into account the political unrest in Thebes, as well as Judith butler’s critique of Althusser, and the potential radicalism of the subject who refuses ideo- logically contingent subjectivity (especially butler 1993, 121–40). The suicide scene is the culmination of the interaction between Hae- mon and Creon in Antigone; this interaction, however, begins prior to the Haemon’s appearance on the tragic stage. Just before Haemon’s entrance, Creon foresees a possible dispute with his son in what, as we shall see, is significant language: tavc j eijsovmesqa mavntewn uJpevrteron. w\ pai`, teleivan yh`fon a\ra mh; kluw;n th`~ mellonuvmfou patri; lussaivnwn pavrei… h] soi; me;n hJmei`~ pantach`/ drw`nte~ fivloi… (631–4) We’ll soon know, better than the seers. My child, having heard the final decree concerning your future bride, surely you aren’t coming here now, raving mad with your father? or, in everything i do, am i dear to you?3 After Creon’s initial explanation of what makes an ideal child (639–80: constructed, perhaps tellingly, through masculine clichés), Haemon enacts an ultimately futile defense of Antigone. First, he reports the opinions of the Theban population, gathered by eavesdropping from the shadows (uJpo; skovtou, 692). While such reports likely represent unrest within the city, the gendered quality of gossip may be relevant (McClure 1999, 56–62), especially given Creon’s imminent turn to gender-based insults.4 such insults may hinge on favti~ (700) as a dangerous corrup- tion of masculine speech (McClure 1999, 56), and an existential threat to social (and gendered) hierarchy in the polis (McClure 1999, 58).5 The most explicit characterization of Haemon occurs in the stichomy- Copyright TTUP MilleR—Destabilizing Haemon 165 thia. Creon’s language is extreme and progressively subordinates Hae- mon: first he is the ally of a woman (740), then beneath a woman (746), and finally slave to a woman (756). Furthermore, Creon’s accusation that Haemon is tricking him through wordplay resonates with the gen- dered nature of gossip, and evokes the traditional association of feminin- ity and verbal persuasion.6 Kwtivllw (756) is a striking verb, one that Griffith (1999, 251) indicates “usually denotes deceptive, pretty speech (often feminine) that is calculated to disarm, even seduce, an opponent.” The systematic devaluing of Haemon through gendered language indi- cates the relative value which Creon attaches to ‘man’ and ‘woman’ as well as the assimilation of his own ideology with a normative role in the construction of gender.7 little ambiguity remains at this point in the exchange. Haemon attempts to use gendered language ironically to rebuke his father (741) and he reacts as we might imagine a son reacting in the face of such vitriol.8 in response to Creon’s invective, Haemon also turns to emotion- ally charged speech and by the end of the confrontation he has suc- cumbed to his emotions, abandoned discourse, and stormed off stage: he has seemingly come to grips with the identity imposed upon him, and has foretold his own suicide in ambiguous language (751).9 Haemon leaves enraged, an action that probably prompts the Chorus’s song to the power of eros (781–800; Griffith 1999, 255). After his son leaves the stage, Creon manages one further jab, when he advises the Chorus to let Haemon do whatever he wants, even if it is not appropriate for a man (768).10 in the light of this exchange, let us return to Creon’s query at the approach of Haemon. i have referred to this approach as significant. At the literal level, Creon wonders if Haemon will arrive “raving” (633) or whether he will maintain loyalty to his father.11 Gender roles come to the fore in the potential alternatives. Passion and madness, while the prove- nance of young people of both sexes as the Chorus observes (767), are often particular to women, both in their inability to maintain an equilib- rium of emotion and in their ritual activities (Zeitlin 1990, 65).12 in the context of a series of insults and rhetoric which emphasizes Haemon’s subordination to a woman, Creon makes it clear that there is a gendered component to the specific madness he imagines. indeed, lexical choices also underscore this connection, since a cognate of lussaivnw has already been used in the play to refer to ismene, who is uncontrollably emo- tional (491–2).13 both characters, Haemon and ismene, either are, or will potentially be, “raving” because of their passion and concern for Copyright TTUP 166 Helios Antigone. For both Creon and Antigone, ismene represents a stereotypi- cal female: she is disturbed at her sister’s proposal to disobey the state (44, 62–4, 78–9), suggests that any action against the state should be done deceptively (84–5), and is concerned with her family, despite Anti- gone’s dismissal (536–7, 566; Griffith 1999, 54). Through lussaivnw, Haemon is analogized to this paradigmatic woman; Creon’s emphatic gendered invective thus signals the ideological discourse that envelops Haemon in the course of the agôn. The two alternatives for Haemon’s attitude (and identity), which Creon posits, are not presented equally: a\ra mhv anticipates that Haemon will, in fact, not be “raving” on account of Antigone. Creon also frames the address by characterizing his sentence on Antigone as a “final judg- ment” (teleivan yh`fon, 632); such a description hardly anticipates that he will accept criticism or change his mind. Word choice here is telling: yh`fo~ was regularly used for voting or a decree carried by votes (lsJ, s.h.v. 5); ismene refers to Creon’s decree as a yh`fo~ earlier in the play (with some foresight she qualifies this with turavnnwn: Ant. 60; cf. Aeschy- lus, Eum. 680; euripides, Supp. 484). Thus, the first identity offered Haemon, the one characterized effeminately (and compared through allusion with ismene), is described as if he arrives in reaction to a demo- cratic decision, as a citizen. in the second alternative, however, the stress is on the inclusion of Haemon in Creon’s circle of philoi, that is, an inclu- sion into his family; as we might expect, the second of the two offered identities has nothing of the effeminizing frame of the first. in reading Antigone (and broadly, Greek tragedy), Griffith (1999a, 30–5) suggests that there is a disparity between the nature of authority represented on the tragic stage (monarchy) and that realized in the Athe- nian polis (participatory democracy). According to Griffith (1999a, 68), Athenian political life posited an impossible dialectic of authority in the contrasted roles of son and citizen: Within a single oikos, the father remains in charge year in and year out, physically, legally, religiously and morally . . . The democratic princi- ples of rotation of authority, scrutiny of officials before and after their tenure of office, equal votes and freedom of speech, have no place in a well-run patriarchal household. in the context of home (as son), complete subjection to an unchanging authority (the father) was expected, while in civic life (as citizen), the democratic ethos expected a citizen to both rule and be ruled. in his speech Copyright TTUP MilleR—Destabilizing Haemon 167 after the appearance of Haemon, Creon seems to speak to such an ethos (669), though the sincerity of this speech is undermined by his actions and its military characterization (Griffith 1999, 237).14 Haemon embodies the problematic aspects of this dialectic: is he son or citizen?15 Creon’s suggested identities seemingly acknowledge these two possibilities as well, since in the first the condemnation of Antigone is framed in a democratic context, while in the second Haemon will be included in his father’s philoi, but at the cost of accepting his father’s actions “in every respect” (634). Griffith (1999a, 69) offers that part of the dispute between father and son in Antigone can be seen from the perspective of their mutually exclusive concepts of authority: “Creon and Haemon find themselves becoming furiously angry at the outrageous claims of the other, as neither is able to identify or articulate the source of the confusion.” That Haemon begins his response to Creon in the guise of son (635), and seemingly acquiesces to his father’s authority and assumes the second of two alternatives (to be a philos), may be part of this confusion: Haemon postures as a son but then challenges the authority of his father as a citizen (cf. ormand 1999, 81). The four lines preceding Haemon’s entry on stage are thus crucial to the subjectivity offered to him by Creon (and authorized by the Chorus of Theban elders), and prefigure the remainder of their interaction.16 Polis versus family, alternative sources of authority, and attitudes towards rulership collapse into a binary: loyalty or disloyalty to the father. The structure that Creon adapts to his ideological perspective forces contra- dictions together and assimilates them with gendered referents: loyalty/ son/subservient/masculine contrasts with disloyalty/citizen/independent/ feminine. The ideological basis for this scheme is readily apparent: mas- culinity is tied to loyalty (and thus only available to those who are loyal) but also, counterintuitively, to subservience (and thus only available to those who accept Creon’s autocracy); conversely, femininity is charac- terized as disloyal, but independent and active.17 in the end, Creon expresses a harsh polarity that condemns dissenters to confused identi- ties; notably, his offered subjectivity, while discordant with the received ideas of normative gender roles, construes a masculinity that suits the current social condition: the autocratic rule of tyrant requires citizens as sons (masculine and subservient).18 Haemon leaves the tragic stage (this is his only appearance). He returns to prominence in the tragedy only when Teiresias alludes to his potential death (1064–8), which prompts Creon to finally change his mind (1095–7) and rush off to bury Polynices and free Antigone Copyright TTUP 168 Helios (1108–14).19 only after the Chorus’s optimistic hymn to Dionysus does the Messenger return to detail the fate of Creon, Haemon, and Antigone. The Messenger’s speech proper begins by recounting the burial of Poly- nices (1196–1203), and then proceeds to describe Creon’s approach to the cave. Just as in the preface to the agôn, Creon attempts to label Hae- mon’s social identity. As the group approaches the tomb, unknown cries are heard from inside (1206–7). While the “someone” (ti~) who hears the cries cannot identify them, and the cries remain a[shma (unintelligi- ble) as they surround Creon (1209), he identifies and interprets the sounds: “My son—his voice greets me” (1214). Not only does he realize an identity (Haemon) for the previously unidentifiable sounds (it is tell- ing that only Creon can give identity to the cries), but he qualifies them too (“son”).20 This is rather surprising, considering that at the end of their agôn Creon had dismissed Haemon in the most abusive terms avail- able: “slave to woman,” “beneath a woman,” etc.21 in front of the cave, however, he reasserts his familial bond to his son (one of the identities he offered prior to the agôn) and characterizes Haemon’s cries of anguish as greetings. This short address attempts to categorize Haemon as philos, the role offered him earlier, although within the cave in the face of expec- torate and at the point of a sword Creon will find that Haemon tries to establish his own hostile identity. Haemon’s attempted patricide has been interpreted variously (1226– 34). Hortmut erbse, for example, argues that it is motivated by two intertwined angers: Creon’s treatment of Antigone and his own inability to protect her (1991, 254; emphasized by the ambiguous meaning of Ant. 1235).22 While i find this approach convincing, at least in terms of emotional characterization, the connection between the attack on Creon and the earlier agôn has been overlooked, even though it adds depth to any interpretation of the scene in the cave. indeed, vocabulary and themes that were prominent in the agôn between Haemon and Creon recur, in particular, in a portion of Creon’s long speech in which he advises his son on the appropriate action concerning Antigone: mhv nuvn pot j, w\ pai`, ta;~ frevna~ g j uJf j hJdonh`~ gunaiko;~ ou{nek j ejkbavlh/~, eijdw;~ o{ti yucro;n paragkavlisma tou`to givgnetai, 650 gunh; kakh; xuvneuno~ ejn dovmoi~. tiv ga;r gevnoit j a]n e{lko~ mei`zon h] fivlo~ kakov~… ajpoptuvsa~ ou\n w{ste dusmenh` mevqe~ th;n pai`d j ejn A { idou thvnde numfeuvein tiniv. Copyright TTUP MilleR—Destabilizing Haemon 169 Never, my child, because of pleasure of a woman, Release your wits; knowing instead that This pleasure becomes a cold object of your embrace, 650 A wicked woman as companion in your home. For what wound would be worse than an evil loved one? so, spit her out, like an enemy, let that girl Go and marry someone in Hades. in the cave scene, ironic recollection of this advice is pervasive. The whole episode is predicated on Haemon’s subjection to (potential) plea- sure on account of a woman: Antigone is the reason he has gone to the tomb and is found there sobbing over her corpse (1223–5). A cruel twist translates the metaphorical “cold object of your embrace” of Creon’s advice into the actual cold, lifeless body of Antigone, which Haemon does, in fact, embrace (1223). More lexical play with Creon’s earlier commands establishes the connection. Whereas Creon had told Haemon to metaphorically “spit out” Antigone and leave her to Hades, in the suicide scene Haemon greets his father’s exclamatory greeting by actu- ally spitting in his face (1232). Where Creon had used the verb ejkbavllw to warn Haemon away from the corrupting influence of Antigone, in the suicide scene this verb is redeployed and inverted, as Haemon’s blood “shoots out” onto Antigone’s cheek (1238). Creon’s belief in the threat of patricide (752) has been translated into Haemon’s ineffectual attempted murder of his father (1231–4; cf. sourvinou-inwood 1989, 145). Thus, Creon’s admonitory and paranoid vocabulary has become the vocabulary of Haemon’s erotically charged actions (or, at least, the vocabulary used by the Messenger to report the events), and so the preamble to Haemon’s suicide is framed as a continuation of the ear- lier agôn, and the attempted patricide and suicide should be conceived as a continuation of the themes of that agôn, namely, the ambiguity of Haemon’s gendered identity in the authoritarian polis of Creon, pas- sion and madness, and the context of rising popular (and threatening) dissatisfaction.23 My interpretation of the suicide as a continuation of the earlier agôn stands in marked contrast to the common view that it represents the consummation of Haemon’s marriage to Antigone (seaford 1987, 120– 1; Rehm 1994, 65; Griffith 1999, 339).24 in fact, the Messenger pro- vides this interpretation in the play: kei`tai de; nekro;~ peri; nekrw`/, ta; numfika ;É telv h lacwn; deilv aio~ en[ g j A { idou domv oi~ (Corpse lies around corpse, for the wretch seizes his wedding rites in the house of Hades, 1240–1).25 Copyright TTUP 170 Helios While the rationale behind the Messenger’s interpretation of Haemon’s suicide as a consummation seems readily identifiable—the suicide com- pletes the connection between death and marriage that has run through the play (e.g., 806–16)—this explanation should not preclude any ambi- guity in the quality of Haemon’s actions, especially when we consider, as i do, the suicide scene as a continuation of the earlier confrontation.26 even on a surface reading, the failure of Haemon to embrace Antigone’s still hanging corpse, and the feeble description of this action, must attune us, as they assuredly did ancient audiences, to a more compli- cated characterization.27 elizabeth Craik (2002, 89–90) points out the sexual vocabulary at play in the description of the suicide. The phallic nature of the sword is obvious, and Jeffrey Henderson offers a catalogue of comic double- entendres that rely on understanding the sword as the male member (e.g., Aristophanes, Lys. 156, 632; Henderson 1991, 120–2). Craik also points to the use, in Attic comedy, of words such as ejreivdw and ejpenteivnw (both of which occur in the suicide scene: 1235–6) as crude sexual euphemisms (Aristophanes, Eccl. 615–6 and Thesm. 488; Craik 2002, 91–2).28 she further remarks that didymoi, the standard word for ‘testi- cles,’ are evoked in the description of Haemon’s sword (1233), and that this might also contribute to an eroticization of the death scene (2002, 92 note 7). While she suggests that this vocabulary underlines the Mes- senger’s interpretation (2002, 90), i take the vocabulary as part of the underlying sexual and erotic quality of the scene, but without privileging any interpretation; this vocabulary, contra Craik, does not necessarily imply a consummation, or a masculine identity for Haemon.29 The erotic quality of the description is complicated by contextualiz- ing the polyvalence of blood; although blood often evokes the battlefield and warfare, indoors it is frequently feminine (and here, of course, the bloodletting takes place in a cave).30 in fact, to be the passive agent, the one shedding blood, is, in some texts, typically feminine (Hippocrates, Mul. 1.6.72; Dean-Jones 1991, 101–2).31 The name of Haemon, etymo- logically related to the Greek root for ‘bloody’ (cf. Chantraine 1968), makes this rather intuitive;32 at the same time, the uncertainty of activ- ity or passivity in this etymology enhances the ambiguity of Haemon’s relationship to blood.33 The identification of activity and passivity with respect to blood as somehow analogous to gendered roles seemed natural to some Greek intellectuals, who considered blood a crucial element to many aspects of biology for a woman. The Hippocratic corpus, for exam- ple, makes much of the proper flowing of blood as indicative of the Copyright TTUP MilleR—Destabilizing Haemon 171 healthy working of a woman’s body (proper blood loss during menstrua- tion: Hippocrates, Aph. 5.57; lack of menstruation: Hippocrates, Mul. 2.133 and King 1983, 115–7, 124). blood was also a crucial element in social maturity for a Greek woman. As Helen King (1983, 20) puts it, “becoming a gyne involves a series of bleedings, each of which must take place at the proper time.” This series would customarily include men- struation, defloration, and childbirth.34 While a paucity of sources makes our ability to reconstruct typical Greek defloration difficult, there is a basis for the claim that in classical times blood was expected to appear at first intercourse (Dean-Jones 1991, 52).35 in light of this cultural, medical, and linguistic context, i suggest that defloration may be an alternative description of the suicide: Haemon penetrates himself and bleeds in a cave, which is described as a wedding chamber, and during what are referred to as wedding rites (1240–1); the erotic allusiveness of sophocles’ vocabulary further underscores the sexual context and provokes the audience’s recognition of the eroticiza- tion of Haemon’s death. The standard reading of this passage, which interprets Haemon’s suicide as solely a masculine act, as a metaphori- cal consummation, ignores both the feminine aspect of being pene- trated and the feminine quality of the liquid he emits.36 Acknowledging these aspects allows for the possibility that the apparent consummation through ejaculation may simultaneously effect the reverse. Thus, Hae- mon’s suicide is neither ‘masculine’ nor ‘feminine,’ but rather empha- sizes the multiple identities that can cohere in a single individual, and the impossibility of distinguishing actions into discrete and safely demar- cated categories. other similar fraught tragic suicides make the ambiguity of Haemon’s suicide clearer. A comparative example, which has long been regarded as erotic (Winnington-ingram 1980, 81; Rehm 1994, 77), is Deianeira in sophocles’ Trachiniae.37 Deianeira too kills herself in a bridal chamber (913) and refers to wedding rites (920); she, like Haemon, uses a “double- edged” sword and stabs herself in the side (930–1). Moreover, her sui- cide and that of Haemon are both the objects of a narration, even if Deianeira’s death is reported by a Nurse rather than a messenger proper. Death by sword is often regarded as a masculine method of suicide, though Deianeira and Haemon problematize this schematization (loraux 1987, 14).38 in fact, the eroticization of their suicides combined with their emulation of male death in battle points to an impossibility of set- ting up such clear distinctions. Victoria Wohl (1998, 35) indicates this when she recognizes Deianeira’s death as transgendered: “[she] is both Copyright TTUP 172 Helios a failed man and a failed woman.” in contrast, Ajax, the only other male suicide in extant tragedy, is markedly different. While he kills himself with a sword, he does so in full view of the audience and maintains nar- rative control over the description and timing of his own death (perhaps “self-slaughtered” [sophocles, Aj. 840–1] has metatheatrical resonance). Also Ajax evokes traditionally masculine concerns about harming ene- mies (cf. Ant. 641–4), and looks forward hopefully to the treatment of his corpse after death (Aj. 826–30). Moreover, while Deianeira’s sword is implicitly characterized as a surrogate for her husband (she kills herself after making Heracles’ bed and undressing: Trach. 916, 924–6; easterling 1982, 190), Ajax’s sword contains an epic backstory (Aj. 817) and rep- resents the “completion of Ajax’s single combat with Hector” (Hesk 2003, 80). The motives of Deianeira and Haemon are distinct from those of Ajax: whereas their suicides are characterized as acts of madness and passion, Ajax’s death restores relationships (belfiore 2000, 113), mitigates potential shame (belfiore 2000, 116), and permits him a final “hoplite battle” (loraux 1987, 20). The ambiguous nature of Haemon’s actions, its “transgendered” char- acter (to borrow Wohl’s phrase), and its productive comparison with the equally ambiguous suicide of Deianeira, therefore, indicate the potential to read multiple and simultaneously discordant gender identities. The discordance becomes clearer when the suicide is integrated into the agôn with Creon and the ideological gender roles that are inchoate under his authority. in this culminating scene, Haemon’s attempt to act as the active agent in the shedding of blood, a penetrative agent, is an attempt to instantiate a masculine role, a hierarchically powerful one, for himself. He tries to assert his own subjectivity outside the bounds of his father’s words and attempts to reestablish the received association of masculinity and activity, which has been perverted and rejected in Creon’s Thebes. The failure to kill his own father, as Griffith (1999, 95) reminds us, might be interpreted as a failure to proceed to adulthood; elise Garrison (1999, 114) argues that his suicide may also be the result of his distress at the tyrannical aspirations of his father. The critical disjunction on this issue underscores Griffith’s acknowledgement of the contradiction in Attic politics between the unbridled authority of the father and the rotating and temporary power of civic magistrates; that is, Haemon’s attempted patricide puts into play the contradictory political dialectic embodied in his person and its analogy to gender, which has already motivated the bitterness of their agôn. The inability to resolve this contradiction, however, turns back on Copyright TTUP