Sophocles’ age old play Antigone is about a young girl who fights King Creon’s unjust law for the burial of her brother who was deemed a traitor to their town. With the act of civil disobedience both Antigone and Creon strive for their own justice but in the end meet their fate. A more modern way of civil disobedience would be the strategy that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used. The steps a person can use to change a law they find unjust are explained in his essay “The Power of Non-Violence” and “The Letter to Birmingham Jail”. Martin Luther King’s theory has four major steps: first finding an injustice exists, negotiation, self-purification and direct action. Although Antigone’s actions against Creon do not completely conform to Marin Luther…
All throughout history women have been treated as and given less than men. In Antigone, Creon shows his sexism by saying, "We keep the laws then, and the lawmakers, and no woman shall seduce us. If we must lose, let’s lose to a man, at least! Is a woman stronger than we (Creon, 792)?” Judging from this statement, Creon believes that it would be better to lose to a man stronger than him than a woman, Creon also appears to have pride issues. Even though the lawmakers and Creon looked down on Antigone for being a woman, she still fought for what she believed in. Likewise, Susan B Anthony was told she couldn't do a lot of things. When Susan wanted to vote in the presidential elections, the New York state government told her and all the other women in the country that they were not allowed to vote in the elections. Despite the governments' warnings, the fact Susan was a woman and clearly not allowed to vote, she still fought for her beliefs and voted anyway. Antigone and Susan both show characteristics of strong, prideful…
Additionally, violating the law brings harm to others. For example, in Scene 5 it states, "The burden you carry in your hands is heavy, But it is not all: you will find more in your house... The Queen is dead." (Lines 1000 & 1002). Due to Antigone breaking the law it lead to the death of many. Antigone's one decision to bury Polyneices consequently caused a chain reaction of negative outcomes such as harm to others.…
In Sophocles' play "Antigone”, the ideas of obeying the law of one’s community and following ones own moral beliefs come into conflict. The plot revolves around two brothers, Eteocles and Polyneices having killed each other in an attempted to gain rule and their Uncle Creon gaining power after their deaths. He orders Eteocles given an honorable funeral and Polyneices to be left in the streets to rot. Creon believes that Polyneices' body shall be condemned to this because of his civil disobedience and treachery against the city. However, the dead brothers’ sister, Antigone, believes this unfair to Polyneices and insulting to the Gods.…
women that live and Thebes. These women were crying because their king, Creon, refused to let…
One of the illustrations of civil disobedience comes at the actions of Antigone. For many years, civil disobedience is understood as being the right to resist government against laws that citizens believe are morally incorrect. Antigone portrays this type of defiance towards King Kreon. She, in an act of disobedience, directly violates a command put by the king, which states that her brother Polyneices will not be given a proper burial. Since Antigone strongly believes this is morally incorrect, she attempts to still give honor to her brother by burying him. Antigone`s disobedience towards Kreon`s rules is portrayed by the following quote, “You must be as you believe. I will bury him myself. If I die for doing that, good: I will stay with him,…
The ability to do something or act in a particular way, especially as a faculty or quality way. The definition of power shows exactly how people can abuse it. People that have power can abuse and misuse it in many different situations from historic literature to politics in real life. The abuse of power is shown by King Creon in the greek tragedy Antigone by Sophocles.…
Through the course of Antigone, a play by Sophocles, various characters justify their actions based on their own perception of duty. A strong example of one of them is Antigone. In the play, Antigone experiences a series of moral tests. She has to choose whether to abide by the laws of Thebes or take her own path and follow moral laws and obey the gods instead of the King Creon. She chooses to go against Creon and follow her own moral laws and bury her brother.…
What do you think are the circumstances in which the law should be ignored? In the story “Antigone”, Antigone herself gets in trouble by her uncle Creon for ignoring the law and burying her brother, who no one wasn’t allowed by the new king to be buried. The law can be ignored when you are doing it for the right cause and you are not harming anyone by doing so.…
The play Antigone Is about Oedipus’s three two sons Eteocles and Polynices killing each other in a conflict over who rightfully is king of Thebes. With both of the possible heirs to the throne their uncle Creon is king of Thebes. Creon passed a law stating that giving Polynices a proper burial was illegal. Creon stated that “proclamation has forbidden to dignify him with the burial, morning him at all” (Sophocles, 1109, 228). The reason for this law is that Polynices shared the throne with his brother for years but since he wanted the kingdom for himself he fought his brother. This lead to both of them killing each other so, Creon labeled Poylnices a trader. However, this goes against the religious duties of the people in this era of burying the dead so they can pass over to the afterlife.…
It is prevalent that citizens around the world feel the need to follow their moral compass rather than the laws their state administers. When faced with a certain dilemma that causes any citizen to choose between following his moral conscience or following the rules mandated by the state, he is prone to following the law out of fear of the consequences if he chooses not to comply. However, there are those who prove to be an exception to this assumption, those who rebel against the state due to the moral and ethical considerations man has. Greek philosopher Sophocles conveys this trait of rebellion due to morality in Antigone through the protagonist Antigone and Plato discusses the same trait by referring to Plato, both whom serve as the primary example of wrestling with civil disobedience.…
Three Death-defying Conflicts The play Antigone is comprised of many conflicts that all led to the tremulous ending. Antigone is a play that shows a woman’s attempt to carry out a respectable burial for her brother and the consequences/events that follow. The events that followed were more deaths. Many conflicts arise as a result of Antigone burying her brother against the order of her Uncle Creon, the king.…
Throughout the play, Antigone’s behavior does not reveal an act of civil disobedience against injustice. When Creon states, “Polyneices, I say, is to have no burial: no man is to touch him or say the least prayer for him,”…
Civil Disobedience in America There are many traps one can fall into when beginning an essay on civil disobedience. From the quoting of Thoreau, “There will never be a really free and enlightened state until the state comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived,” to the Merriam Webster dictionary definition, “the refusal to obey governmental demands or commands especially as a nonviolent and usually collective means of forcing concessions from the government” smoothly guiding the reader into civil disobedience. Thoreau, emphasising the power of the individual, and the definition setting a foundation, highlight different facets of peaceful protest. However, both of these examples, even when woven together in a not-so-witty introduction, fail to recognize the magnitude of the role civil disobedience has played in shaping the modern world. Non-violent civil disobedience comes in many forms, always with the public intention of achieving some sort of government change in a manner not physically harmful to others.…
What is civil disobedience? It can be defined as the active nonviolent refusal to obey a law that is deemed to be unjust (Boss, 2012). DeChristopher, a climate-change activist, was convicted of bidding on oil and gas leases in a 2008 federal auction. A jury found that he defrauded the federal government, running up a $1.8 million tab he could not pay (The Salt Lake Tribune, 2011). As a result of DeChristopher’s civil disobedience, the oil and gas leases he bid on were later deemed inappropriate for drilling and withdrawn from future auctions.…