Community After Rupture: Care, Kinship, and Recognition in Antigone, Cassandra, and Persephone

Human communities have always lived in the tension between rupture and repair. This paper proposes that this rhythm is not accidental but structural: rupture is inevitable, and repair is necessary for continuity. While contemporary feminist philosophy has illuminated the politics of care, precarity, and recognition, the universality of rupture and repair has not been fully named. Classical myths encode this rhythm in ways that resonate with feminist re-readings of community. By reading Antigone, Cassandra, and Persephone through the lens of rupture and repair, I argue that ancient narratives anticipated what feminist philosophy now makes explicit: that communities are not defined by harmony or stability, but by their capacity to repair after rupture. This perspective offers both a new interpretive lens on classical myth and a framework for feminist philosophy today.