— Haemon’s suicide in Antigone as an act of sexual violence against Antigone
The suicide of Haemon at the end of Antigone is a sexual scene and is usually read as such. Sophocles makes it clear that Haemon joining Antigone in death is an act of marriage through suicide: “he has won his bride at last, poor boy, not here but in the houses of the dead” (1240-1241, trans. by Fagles).
But people usually overlook that this marriage is an act of violence. It denies the narrative that Antigone built for herself. It denies her the choice she thought she was making when she committed suicide.
Antigone insists on the fact that she dies a virgin (she says she is given in marriage to Acheron/Hades). Even if she laments this lack of marriage so that she will be pitied, she never mentions Haemon, not once in the play. She chooses to hang herself — a maiden’s feminine death, despite the way she transgresses gender roles throughout the play. She claims that what she does for her brother, she would do for no other, and specifically not for a child or a husband (“if my husband died, exposed and rotting— i’d never have taken this ordeal upon myself // a husband dead, there might have been another” (906-909)): she removes herself from the structure of marriage, she refuses the societal norms that would have her forget the family she’s born in for the family she will marry into — she does not want to leave her oikos, she claims the curse of her house for herself. Antigone is transgressive as an unmarried girl, a sister & daughter rather than a wife.
And Haemon, in his distress, kills himself over her corpse and negates this. The play laments them both, married in death at last, but Antigone did not ask for it.
Antigone’s corpse is literally violated by Haemon’s death. Marriage must be consumed, and the description of the suicide is sexual. When he dies, Haemon embraces the corpse of Antigone, and he “released a quick rush of blood, bright red on her cheek glistening white” (1238-1239): blood is of course metaphorical semen; he taints her body and claims her.
Her corpse and her death are violated by this suicide, it intrudes into her narrative, and claims her as Haemon’s bride, despite her refusal to take upon this role.
Now—do I think Haemon’s intent is to metaphorically rape Antigone? Not exactly. But he is aware that he is going against her wishes by claiming her as his. Part of why he does that anyway is obvious: he is distressed, he stands next to her hanging corpse, he wants to share her fate. But that’s not all of it.
Haemon’s suicide happens in front of Kreon. Kreon witnesses the death of his son and the marriage it performs. I believe that even though Haemon’s suicide is partly due to his distress, its specific context is a performance. And the intended audience is Kreon. This happens just after he tries and fails to kill his father. Kreon is the one who tried to take Antigone away from Haemon. Here, Haemon goes against his father’s orders: he defies his authority both as father and as king. In doing so, to harm his father, he affirms himself as a man (and not a boy or a son). To do this, he establishes his own manliness and authority within the patriarchal context of ancient Greek society: in marriage. He kills himself with his sword (a manly death) but that is not enough: he also affirms his gendered and sexual power by claiming Antigone. He diminishes her to the status of an object/bride, and uses her against Kreon.
At the same time, this is (consciously or not) a way to refuse Antigone’s claim that she belongs to her family. Haemon knows she chose to abandon the idea of their marriage to instead bury her brother. He must have heard that she affirms she would not have done the same for a husband. In marrying her anyway, now that she is not in a state to refuse him anymore, he asserts his authority over her. He refuses her choice to belong only to her birth family. Antigone’s suicide was supposed to be solely about her brother Polynices, whom she chose over her betrothed: the fact that Haemon immediately claims her as his negates this. Suddenly, Antigone is not simply a dead sister anymore. She is also a dead bride, a part of a doomed couple that could only marry in death. Haemon proves to Antigone that she could not simply abandon him, that she does not belong to Polynices or to herself, but to him.
By framing his suicide as a marriage, Haemon violates Antigone’s body and mind, and goes against her choices. He refuses her her agency. This violence is psychological but also sexual. Here, suicide is marriage is rape.
