The tale of Antigone is a Tragedy

There are both(prenominal) critics who believe that Antig wholeness, despite her esthesis of a higher legal expert and truth, is wrong to go against State law or the laws of Creon. many an(prenominal) feel this way because they maintain that without State law indian lodge would dissolve into chaos as individuals chose to do whatever they felt ilk doing. This is why Antigone must face the consequences of disobeying Creon's law, despite her persuasion that she is doing the even off topic. However, critic Joseph Gerhard maintains that Creon's finality to punish Antigone is dirty. He argues this is the slickness because Creon's decision to refuse burial to her brother is not back up by the then-current "tables of law" (Gerhard, p. 23). As such, we see that Creon is using his superpower to make laws and not basing them on what is right.

We see that Antigone is aware of the occurrence that she is going to be punished in conceal her brother, because it goes against Creon's dictate. However, Antigone views her decision from the perspective of the Gods and bases her decision on the belief that they, and she, feel that burying him is the just and right thing to do. It is this belief that gives her the strength to wear authority and bury her brother, knowing full well she pull up stakes be punished for her actions by the "mightier" Creon. As she says to her sister just before burying her brother, "But leave me, and the folly that is mine alone, to live this dread thing; for I shall not suffer aught so dreadful as an ignoble death," (Sophocles, 463).

In other words, Antigone would rather get going at the hands of the unjust Creon by doing the "right" thing than die without doing the right thing and suffer the shame of the judicial decision of the Gods.

Moldstad, D. "The Mill on the Floss and Antigone." Publication of the Modern diction Association. May 1970, 85(3): 527-531.

We see that the dilemma faced by Antigone is one that is often faced by individuals in contemporary society. During the polite Rights Movement, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was put in jail in Birmingham for protesting against what he felt was the injustice of the "mightier" government and local clergy.

However, like Antigone, he believed that the actions he was taking were more just and right than the unjust might he viewed the government and clergy exhibiting to oppress African Americans. In a letter he wrote to the local clergy eyepatch incarcerated, we see that his views are quite akin to those of Antigone and her conflict with Creon. As Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, "?one has a good duty to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that ?an unjust law is no law at all.' Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a synthetical code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law" (p. 3).

Antigone's decision is supported by other characters in the play, most notably and most tragically by Creon's give birth son, Haemon. Haemon appeals to his father to change his mind with respect to his decision regarding Antigone's death. Haemon appeals to his father's sense of justice and fairness. As he argues to his father, "Nay, forego thy wrath; admit thyself to change. For if I, a younger man, may offer my thought, it were far best, I ween, that men should be all-wise by nature; but, otherwise-and oft the plate inclines not so-?tis good also to learn from those who speak aright," (Sophocles,
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