Examples Of Justice In Antigone

Clearly, one of the main themes in Sophocles’s tragedy Antigone is justice. Antigone herself seems to conflate justice with the will of the gods, asserting to Creon that there are “laws whose penalties [she] would not incur from the gods, through fear of any man’s temper.” (502-503) This is, of course, in reference to her belief that her deceased brother deserves a proper burial; funeral rites are often seen as intrinsically tied to religion. She even describes herself as “a criminal - but a religious one.” (84-85) Such a concept of justice is also juxtaposed heavily with that of mere judgment - mainly meaning Creon’s relatively arbitrary decree and the bias that is evident in his method of evaluation, therefore making Antigone a “criminal” for seeking seemingly-objective justice for her brother. (“Objective” meaning that proper burial is a matter of respect for the dead, no matter who the person was, rather than a punishment to be withheld due to said person’s actions in life, as Creon seems to view it.)