Antigone’s Reach: A Feminine Model for Today’s Businesswoman

Klimek, D. (2008). Antigone’s Reach: A Feminine Model for Today’s Businesswoman (Doctoral dissertation, Pacifica Graduate Institute, 2008).

ABSTRACT

This dissertation addresses the specific text of Antigone, a Sophoclean tragedy, by bringing the characters and the temperament of tragedy into the realm of modern businesswomen. Relying on areas of depth psychology and personal experience as a woman business owner for over 25 years, the figure of Antigone reveals insights for both women and men in the corporate environment. The central research question of this theoretical work is: How do both the play, Antigone, and the leading figure speak to women in business today in both the individual psyche of women and the more corporate psyche of the business field? The framework is a textual hermeneutic method. Beginning with basic principles from Jungian psychology, the study explores how the anima and animus, along with aspects of the shadow and other archetypal images, interact in both the conflict between Creon and Antigone in the original work, and corporate situations as modern women become more present in the management layers of corporations. It continues with an overview of Jung’s psychological types as utilized by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator which today is frequently applied in business management assessments.


The subject of power throughout the original text and the ways in which power impacts today’s business world are crucial to this study by including several profiles of modern businesswomen in various degrees of success to determine how power relates to business and also how power is used differently by men and women.
The action of this tragedy, especially Antigone’s suicide, topples Creon, the despot king, and collapses the government of Thebes. Antigone, who appears to have no power at all, directs the entire tragedy including the suicides of Haemon, her betrothed, and his grief-stricken mother, Eurydice. When relying on the notion that tragedy is a symbolic space for discovery about both strengths and weaknesses within the human community, the actions and motives of these characters deploy rich insights into the way in which people today interact. The result of this study evidences that human behavior, from ancient to modern times, has corresponding and similar archetypal patterns.