Cover Page Images (From Top Left to Bottom Right): http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large-5/3-geisha-girl-christine-mcmillan.jpg https://harleysnode.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/rebel-fist.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/9a/b6/3b/9ab63bb827f6830302a9e98487ee9379.jpg https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/003/795/116/large/thiago-moura-januario-04-15-15-da.jpg?1477531764 http://www.clipartbest.com/cliparts/4cb/o7x/4cbo7xgei.jpeg https://coloneltedcampbell.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/6359333375891329771247431635_mourning_statue_by_ironvenom-d376q4i.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/736x/ae/dc/66/aedc6649e8fc88ee180461e34df1e7c9.jpg https://cdn.superstock.com/1848/Download/1848-628207.jpg http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/12200/12251/blackvulture_12251_lg.gif
A Classic Tale is Timeless Unknown
Her soul is fierce Her heart is brave Her mind is strong R.h.Sin
ISMENE: What's the matter? Trouble, clearly... you sound so dark, so grim. ANTIGONE: Why not? Our own brothers' burial! Hasn't Creon graced one with all the rites, disgraced the other? Eteocles, they say, has been given full military honours, rightly so Creon's laid him in the earth and he goes with glory down among the dead. But the body of Polyneices, who died miserably— why, a city-wide proclamation, rumour has it, forbids anyone to bury him, even mourn him. He's to be left unwept, unburied, a lovely treasure for birds that scan the field and feast to their heart's content. Such, I hear, is the martial law our good Creon lays down for you and me—yes, me, I tell you and he's coming here to alert the uninformed in no uncertain terms, and he won't treat the matter lightly.
Whoever disobeys in the least will die, his doom is sealed: stoning to death inside the city walls! There you have it. You'll soon show what you are, worth your breeding, Ismene, or a coward for all your royal blood.
ISMENE: My poor sister, if things have come to this, who am I to make or mend them, tell me, what good am I to you?
ANTIGONE: Decide. Will you share the labour, share the work? ISMENE: What work, what's the risk? What do you mean? ANTIGONE (raising her hands): Will you lift up his body with these bare hands and lower it with me?
ISMENE: What? You'd bury him when a law forbids the city?
TRUNG NHI: What’s the matter, my darling sister? Come, cloak your face in my embrace so you can shed your tears without shame. What atrocities have befallen you to make you weep? The last time I saw you cry you were but a child.
TRUNG TRAC: It’s Thi Sach. Those Han monsters murdered him. My darling husband is no more.
TRUNG NHI: Oh, my poor, poor sister! I’m here now. Let me be your rock that you can wash with your tears until the reveries of your grief run dry.
TRUNG TRAC: No, no more. (wiping her eyes) Tears will not resurrect him. Tears will not mourn him. There is only one true and proper way to mourn Thi Sach. I must continue and finish his noble fight. His death will not be in vain. The Hans continue to tax and oppress us. They unceasingly assimilate us to their way of life. I no longer recognise my own country, it’s already beginning to turn into a hollowed out shadow of its former self.
Please, sister, be witness to my oath. On my husband’s grave I solemnly swear to avenge his death by teaching the Chinese the true meaning of fear and that the Vietnamese cannot be quakingly shoved into submission. They expect me to behave as a cowardly widow and retreat into a grieving isolation and tend to my fresh, gaping wound. The fools. Don’t they know to never underestimate a Trung woman? (connivingly smiles at Trung Nhi) It might just be the end of them.
TRUNG NHI: Your worrying me sister. That look I know it well, it is the same I often wear, and it brings nothing but trouble.
TRUNG NAC: Well it’s a good thing we’ve never been afraid of a little trouble. It’s time to decide. Will you join me future queen, share the work?
TRUNG NHI: What work? What do you mean queen? What plan are you concocting? TRUNG NAC (raising her hands): Will you raise up the Vietnamese elephant with me and set it, stampeding, on the pesky Han dragon?
TRUNG NHI: What? You’d ignite a revolution against the people that just murdered your husband? You will just as surely follow him down that noble path to death. They’ve shown their power, they’ve shown their strength. This is a fool’s errand.
TRUNG NAC: I have never known you to back away from a fight. I remember when we were little girls and we hunted that tiger. I said we should head home, but you marched on. Many would say that was a fool’s errand. But they don’t have its fur softening their floor. Together we can achieve the impossible, or at least the foolhardy. I need you my sister.
TRUNG NHI:
(Years Later)
And you have me.
MESSENGER: I am here to inform
TRUNG NAC: Until the end?
TRUNG NHI: Until the very end and beyond.
you that the Trung dynasty has come to an end. We fought nobly but were no match for the Chinese Han forces, whom heavily outnumbered us. Our beloved queens died an honourable death worthy of their warrior status. They died at their own hands, together, in a tranquil watery death. Please pass this message on so that all can hear it.
BESSIE: What the matter? What trouble you gone and got yourself into now? ALICE (indignant): I ain’t gone an’ done nothing. It’s all them crazy white folk, they’ve gone an’ done it again (Breaks down)
BESSIE: Hey, hey! (hugging Alice) There, there, big sis Bessie got you now. (A moment). You ready to tell me what going on?
ALICE: It’s Perry and Eddie. They’re dead. BESSIE (shocked): What? ALICE: We were playing round back of Clarence’s yard, I know you told us not to, I’m so, so sorry! (Deteriorating into sobs)
BESSIE: That don’t matter now, okay. You just gotta tell me what happened. ALICE: We… we were playing and Clarence and a group of them city men came marching right on up to us. Clarence, that godforsaken devil of a man, said somebody just hurt his wife. He said we were the only folks round for miles so it must be us. The crowd jeered at that. I said it weren’t us, I said we’d been minding our own business, like the good honest folk we were. I said my brothers wouldn’t hurt nobody, they wouldn’t hurt a fly! Clarence said they easily could have done it, they could of snuck into his grand old house, cause they worked there and all. He said they would have wanted to hurt her, get their own back for being fired. He also said something about her been hell a pretty or something, so it was just too tempting. That got me right riled up that did, I wasn’t taken any more of his lies. So I said to him: look, they’ve been with me this whole damn time, now nobody can be in two places at once. And everybody round here know you like to knock your wife about.
So it was clearly you, not them. Well none of them liked that. Next thing I know Clarence is strangling me. Perry and Eddie fought him off. That when they told me to scatter. And I did, oh I did (sob). I got halfway home and that when I changed my mind. I went back. I had to make sure they were ok Bessie. But they weren’t ok. Clarence and his demons had lynched them up high on that magnolia. I could of curled up right then and there and never moved again. But I weren’t gonna leave them like that. Hanging like they were nothing more than butchered meat down at old Tommy’s. Not my brothers, not our Eddie and Peter. No siree. I’m gonna restore what little justice I can. It’s the least I can do after what I did to them.
BESSIE: My poor, poor Alice! Living in such a godforsaken world! This ain’t your fault, you hear me. Once they set their minds on something there’s no changing it. All we can do is pray to god that those cruel men get what they deserve.
ALICE: But who gonna give Eddie and Perry what they deserve? BESSIE: What you talking about? There’s nothing we can do for the dead now, you hear me? ALICE: What? Don’t the dead deserve a burial? I’m not leaving them hanging out there to be turned into another one of those ghoulish postcards. To be the laughing stock and spectacle of this heartless town. I won’t have it.
BESSIE: And I won’t let you. What makes you think they won’t do the exact same thing to you? They’re all riled up and nothing’s stopping them. Nothing ever stops them. We just lost our brothers don’t make me lose a sister too. I wouldn’t bear it.
INGRID (hysterical sigh of relief): Thank goodness, you’re ok, I was so worried! (hugs Anna to the point of suffocation) You silly, silly little thing! What on earth made you sneak out at a time like this?
ANNA: Someone had to check that our brothers were still resting in peace. Don’t you think they deserve at least that after all the horrors they’ve been through? But no, the SA decided it wasn’t enough to smash glass and bricks and raid our sacred synagogues. They had to break open the graves as well and let grief walk among us yet again! They left Peter, our darling Peter, exposed, strewn, like a worthless rag doll, only good for feeding vermin. Separated from our beloved Erich, who, by some miracle remained safely buried. Yet if it were left to you it would stay that way. We would stay here cowering like frightened little mice, too afraid to even breathe fresh air from fear that the Nazi’s will snatch us. Not only do the Nazi’s torment and control our lives they are now plaguing our deaths. That is the martial law they have laid down, there is to be no escape, no rest from their wickedness, even in death. I won’t have it anymore!
INGRID: Keep your voice down! We can’t have anyone know we’re here. Now tell me, Anke, did anyone see you or follow you?
ANNA: I’m sure half the SA saw me cradling our brother, crying like a woman deranged. I’m sure they’ll knock on that door any second to take me away. I guess they have an excuse now too. But I don’t care anymore, I am sick and tired of cowering! I would rather they dragged me away kicking and screaming than hide, scarcely able to sigh in case they hear me. I’d rather die fighting, just like they did, than live a coward! Come with me Ingrid, fight with me, don’t let them win.
INGRID: My poor little treasure, to see such horrors! But there’s nothing we can do. We’re two mere girls against a powerful regime. I can’t work miracles Anke, and neither can you. It’s time you learnt to except that. We must put our faith in Adonai.
ANNA: I’m not going to wait around for divine intervention, Ingrid. (Turns to leave).
INGRID: Wait! Where are you going? ANNA: To our brother’s grave. To lovingly lower him back to where he rightly belongs. Nobody else will. (goes to leave)
INGRID (stopping Anna): What? You’d bury him even when it puts your own life at risk?
IFFRAT (panicked): What’s the matter? What’s happened? Are you ok? MALALA: It’s ok Iffrat there’s been no more attacks, no one is hurt, praise and thanks to Allah. Sorry for scaring you like that.
IFFRAT: Well then, how come you look so troubled? MALALA: I’m just, I don’t know, … confused. Nothing in my life has changed, I haven’t changed, I am still the same Malala. Yet there is a change. I feel that my weakness, fear and hopelessness have died. And in its place strength, power and courage have been born. How could that be?
But then I remembered the teaching ‘we realize the importance of light when we see darkness’. ‘We realize the importance of our voice when we are silenced’. Have you ever heard of it? (Iffrat nods). I think that this is what is happening to me. I am realising the importance of pens and books when all we see is guns. What they say is true! The ‘pen is indeed mightier than the sword’! The Taliban have forbidden the education of women and attack any woman who dares defy them. Why they only blasted that school the other day! But it is simply because they are frightened. Ha! That’s it! Education frightens them! (Grasping Iffrat) We frighten them!
IFFRAT: But we haven’t done anything.
MALALA: Not us, specifically, but women! Also, I think it’s time that changed. I think it is about time we did something. It’s time for women to be independent and to fight for ourselves! Dear friend, now is the time to speak up! Of course, Allah willing.
IFFRAT: But here we stand two mere girls. Only two of the Taliban’s victims. How are we going to fight for education? What good are we to anyone or anything?
MALALA: That is true. Here we stand just two mere girls. But you are forgetting, we are two girls among many. We already have the mighty weapon of knowledge to wield. All we need now is the shield of unity and togetherness. So, will you join my shield Iffrat? Will you join me?
IFFRAT: Always Malala, you’re like a sister to me. But what will you have me do? MALALA: I think it is time we went to school.
IFFRAT: What? You’d risk being killed by the hand of the Taliban, to go to school? You know I love you Malala, but this is insane. Your life is more important than education.
MALALA: No. It’s time that changed. It’s time education was first. Education is the only solution. One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world. So let us wage, so let us wage a glorious struggle against illiteracy, poverty and terrorism, let us pick up our books and our pens, they are the most powerful weapons.
WOMAN 1: What’s the matter? Trouble, clearly... you seem so dark, so grim.
WOMAN 2: How are you so light, so free? How are you not burdened by the same hefty, constricting chains of the law that suffocates all women? Are you not a woman? Or are you the dainty china doll all men want us to be, good only for shop windows and remaining silent?
WOMAN 1: How dare you! I am woman, unlike you. While you’re galivanting about aggressively protesting, abandoning your homes to disarray, I diligently perform my respectable womanly duties. Just like my mother did, and her mother before her. I am simply upholding an honourable tradition. Whereas, all your radicalism has bought you is one step away from
listen to what you had to say. It is not fair that we are denied a say in the running of our country. The government does not only rule the men! How can the government expect us to obey their decisions if they denied us our decision? Don’t they understand that if we were allowed to vote we would accept their mistakes as our own- because we are mistaken ones to have voted for them in
Whoever dares nip at their toes is kennelled, like a rabid dog, for their “obscenity”. There, you have the facts. You’ll soon show whether you’re a true woman or not.
WOMAN 1: If things have to come to who am I to make or mend them, tell me, what good am I to you? What good is any woman in affecting change if men still hold all the power? You have wasted your breath, it was a man you should have been persuading.
WOMAN
2: Even man cannot overpower a pack of mighty
the first place.That is the only way to return woman to their Edenic meek and mild state. Allow them to vote. Only then will we accept the government’s decisions as a consequence of another of our actions. It is true our bodies may be weaker than their “godly” masculine form. I will grant them that. But our minds are just as sharp, if not more razor-like. Furthermore, it is not our bodies that make decisions but our minds. If the female mind does not significantly differ from the male mind and the male mind is allowed to vote. It follows that the female mind should also be entitled to vote. Yet supposedly intelligent and wise men refuse to listen to such logical reasoning. They are nothing more than circus monkeys playing at running a country. All the while their martial law declares that intelligent women, like you and me, are to remain muzzled, heeling at the patriarchy’s feet.
Antigone, condemned to attend a date with Death, decided to hasten his embrace, rather than rot in the cold and unforgiving pitch-black earth. Her mind, in its signature concrete stubbornness, was set on her suicidal decision. She would die heroically, nobly. The gruesome figure of Death stealthily approached. All the while whispering: “Was it worth it? All the pain and suffering you caused? Was it worth it? Yet another youthful life wasted. Was it worth it? So much potential – gone. Was it worth it? You could have done so much more good. Was it really worth the sacrifice?” The unforgiving airy voice coiled round her, suffocating her plaguing her last living moments with a feverish mind. She paused. She took a deep breath to the bottom of her lungs, and cleaned away the contaminating negative air within. She smiled a knowing, crooked smile, that many would have irresistibly recognised as breath-taking. She uttered one simple word “Yes”. Its truth shone forth. There was no doubt. She knew deep in her heart that doing what is right is always worth the sacrifice. The snake of doubtful whispering uncoiled and scurried, timidly, away. Then there was no more.
Disclaimer Although some of the adaptions are based on real people and real events all the scenarios presented are purely fictional. Text Cited: 43. Sophocles, Antigone 18-48, tr. R. Fagles (Harmondsworth, 1984)
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/12/malala-yousafzai-united-nationseducation-speech-text Images Used http://classicalwisdom.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/antigone-portrait.jpeg https://twitter.com/RestaurantManAU/ https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=j3ALQ%2feF&id=4B10757A258B46A3C17BF8ADC5F46 F174979AA68&thid=OIP.j3ALQ_eFb614R1FpVXYNtQHaFh&mediaurl=http%3a%2f%2fwww.metmuseum.org%2ftoa h%2fimages%2fh2%2fh2_54.11.5.jpg&exph=1119&expw=1500&q=ancient+greek+burial&simid=608048594090985 899&selectedIndex=2&ajaxhist=0 www.ancient-origins.net/sites/default/files/Dong-Hoo-folk-painting.jpg http://www.trbimg.com/img-53fcb2e7/turbine/chi-field-museum-china-exhibit-001 www.historicvietnam.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/6-Trung-Sisters-Monument-2.jpg http://imgc.allpostersimages.com/images/P-473-488-90/38/3866/5R3JF00Z/posters/xpacifica-close-up-of-a-youngasian-woman-s-eye.jpg https://2.bp.blogspot.com/D1Iah3H0OpQ/V0IKsBj7wkI/AAAAAAAAXz4/KqWKs7WbiLcyZ6XyXveJucQaA9BHgFKBQCLcB/s1600/IMG_2827.jpg https://annonetheelephant.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/image-232-e1336926907437.jpg http://moziru.com/images/drawn-weapon-sword-4.jpg http://lencrenoir.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/strangefruit.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/736x/6b/5d/bd/6b5dbd009dcfb5dc12ab198a392a08b9.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c0/ed/70/c0ed70718d1a59db71423baf19105acf.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/236x/1d/b8/53/1db853e6521b40dec24840cff2d8271f.jpg https://www.dollimore.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/alhambra-1.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IdWQgoAeSmA/UuA4TdraT9I/AAAAAAAAkiI/vpsofCofkrs/s1600/malala_hero.jpg https://www.aaha.org/graphics/original/professional/education/edu_landingpage_960x345_1.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0QQqOTKveBE/UBu6AO1MrfI/AAAAAAAAG0o/5FYWkwMuT4w/s1600/Pakistan-FlagsWallpapers-1181x788-023.jpg http://www.yankodesign.com/images/design_news/2017/01/minimal-pen-maximal-expression/piuma9.jpg http://www.operationworld.org/files/ow/maps/lgmap/paki-MMAP-md.png
http://galleryplus.ebayimg.com/ws/web/221745527658_1_1_1.jpg http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/22100000/Colored-pencils-pencils-22186617-1600-1200.jpg https://eliinbar.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/tree-of-knowledge.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZqZH9N3IE1g/VDvOpLbeiqI/AAAAAAAACxg/9ofh8oUhNRk/s1600/Malala-Yousafzai.jpg http://borgenproject.org/wp-content/uploads/Malala-Poverty-is-Sexist-ONE-Campaignjpg.jpg http://www.judyseidman.com/Judy's%20images/1981-JS.gif http://rlv.zcache.com/women_suffrage_congress_poster_1913r26cbd234d53841d2a0680821b615affc_agzo_8byvr_512.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/236x/ce/d7/82/ced782bd48a9ff2086c731c0115964ef.jpg www.1stforprint.co.uk/ebaylistings/VintageTransport/WiW/WIWP022_preview.jpg http://images.clipartpanda.com/demonstration-clipart-protestwomen.png https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2013/07/13/09/41/protest-155927_960_720.png https://img0.etsystatic.com/014/1/5536899/il_340x270.446598282_o7rp.jpg http://eraeducationproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/VoteBomb2012.jpg http://manrepeller.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Why-We-March-Suffragett-GettyImages-Man-Repeller.jpg https://01.img.society6.com/society6/img/EZFK-ic4ijvGZH6kVz_E9sG77v0/w_700/artwork/~artwork/s60031/a/14977787_15452094/~~/a-beautiful-death-oeh-prints.jpg