Presentation of María Zambrano and her work "The tomb of Antigone" for the project "Mythology in Our Language".

1. WOMEN IN WAR
ANTIGONE & MARÍA ZAMBRANO

2. I. ANTIGONE. THE MYTH

3. ANTIGONE, THE DAUGHTER OF OEDIPUS
Oedipus was the son of Laius and
Jocasta, the King and Queen of
Thebes.
An oracle predicted that Oedipus
would kill his father and would marry
his mother.
Even though his parents tried to
avoid this destiny, the foretelling was
fulfilled.
Oedipus and his mother Jocasta have
four children, two boys, Eteocles and
Polynices, and two girls, Antigone
and Ismene.

4. THE END OF OEDIPUS
When it was discovered that
Oedipus had killed his father
and married his mother,
Jocasta committed suicide.
Oedipus, after going blind,
was banished from Thebes
and sentenced himself to
wander far from Thebes
until the end of his days.

5. THE CHILDREN OF OEDIPUS
Antigone and Ismene
acompanied Oedipus on his
exile.
Eteocles and Polynices agreed
to alternate in the government
of Thebes. Eteocles is the first
to rule.
When it came to Polynices’s
turn, Eteocles refused to leave
power.
Polynices assembled an army
and attacked the city of Thebes.

6. THE DEATH OF ETEOCLES Y POLYNICES
To avoid killing more men, Eteocles and Polynices faced off to combat each
other and both died.
Creon, the uncle of both, gained power and decreed that Eteocles, who had
died defending Thebes, would be buried with all honors, while Polynices, who
died attacking the city, would not receive funeral honors .

7. ANTIGONE FACING CREON
Antigone decided to complete the
funerary rights for her brother
Polynices.
She is condemned by Creon to be
entombed alive in a cave.
When Creon withdraws the harsh
punishment imposed on Antigone,
he goes to the cave, where he
finds Antigone dead and his son
Haemon, who’d been in love with
her, dead.

8. II. LITERARY TRADITION OF THE
MYTH OF ANTIGONE

9. CLASSIC GREECE. SOPHOCLES
In this work one finds the religious
duty (to obey the principles of the
gods and of the customs),
opposing the political duty
(obeying the laws of the city).

10. THE ANTIGONIAN PHILOSOPHY.
KIERKEGAARD
A philosophical essay in which
the author, analyzing the
tragedy of Antigone, tries to find
the common characteristics
between ancient tragedy and
modern.

11. ANTIGONE IN WAR
Jean Anouilh and Bertold Brecht write their versions
of the myth regarding war: the Second World War.

12. ANTIGONE IN THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
Salvador Espriu and José María Pemán parallel the
fraternal fight of Eteocles and Polynices with the Spanish
Civil War.

13. III. ANTIGONE’S TOMB BY MARÍA
ZAMBRANO

14. MARÍA ZAMBRANO. HER CHILDHOOD
She was born in Vélez-Málaga in
1904.
Her parents were teachers in the
local secondary school.

15. MARÍA ZAMBRANO. STUDIES
When she studied in late high
school, there were only two
girls in the class.
She studied philosophy at the
Central University of Madrid.
She met and established a
friendship with Antonio
Machado, León Felipe and
Federico García Lorca.

16. MARÍA ZAMBRANO. THE EXILE
After the Civil War, she was exiled with her mother and sister, first to France,
then Cuba, Mexico, and Italy.

17. MARÍA ZAMBRANO. THE RETURN TO SPAIN
After a life of economic scarcity and
healthy prblems, she returned to
Spain in 1984.
She died in Madrid in 1991.

18. ANTIGONE’S TOMB
PERSONAL EVENTS THAT INSPIRED
THE WORK
• Failed love for her cousin,
Miguel Pizarro.
• The pain that, along with her
mother and sister, she suffered
from the exile after the Civil
War.
• Personal tragedy of her sister,
who lost her husband and was
tortured in the Second World
War.

19. ANTIGONE’S TOMB
PREVIOUS WORK
Delirium of Antigone
An essay published in the Cuban
magazine Orígenes in 1948

20. ANTIGONE’S TOMB
THE KEYS
Antigone represented for
Zambrano the symbol of
sacrifice embodied in herself, in
her own mother and sister,
Araceli, three innocent victims
of the devastation of exile.

21. ANTIGONE’S TOMB
In the version by Zambrano,
Antigone sacrifices her life as a
woman to reject marrying Haemon,
but, in return, “born from
everything in life”, after having
been “enclosed in life”, now
entombed, returned to the “cradle”
and “nest” at the same time.