Everyone has experienced pain, but we all deal with it differently. Some people try to avoid experiencing pain, for they are scared; while others accept their punishment and agony. Moral people tolerate their pain and trauma by making their traumatic experience meaningful and important. They learn from their punishment and try to provide insight. In the stories of Antigone and Boycott, Letter From Birmingham Jail, righteous people fought for their beliefs without violence and dealt with their suffering without hesitation.
The struggle for justice has been the motivating factor for various movements across time. From fictional characters like Antigone to famous figures like Martin Luther King, it is possible to see various differences between their approaches to the law and how to change it. In Antigone's dialogue with Creon and Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, the two characters share a variety of differences in their stances. Antigone’s dialogue with Creon focuses on religious law and how it is above mortal law while King’s letter focuses on changing mortal law without relying on religious law to dictate it.
Sandel also describes the idea that some are more qualified than others to determine this telos. Based on King, Aristotle, and Sandel’s ideas of duty to disobey unjust laws to demand change and of whose job it is to decide the telos of actions, Antigone’s burial of her brother in Sophocles’ Antigone is completely just.
Brothers Polynices and Eteocles agree to share power and give it up after they rule, but Eteocles does not follow these conditions. This angers Polynices, and he attacks the city-state Thebes. Creon declares Polynices in the wrong because he attacks his own city-state. Now, only Eteocles can receive a proper burial. Antigone believes otherwise and buries Polynices
Pride can be one of man's strongest qualities. In Sophocles' play, Antigone, the Theme of pride becomes the cause for destruction for both Creon and Antigone in the play.. Creon's Pride blinds him to the injustice he commits against Antigone and the gods. Antigone's pride leaves her no choice but to be killed because of her beliefs. They Both automatically surrender to their own hubris and demonstrate how uncontrolled pride leads to personal downfalls and destruction in Antigone.
Aristotle founded the idea that all the best arguments have three key parts: ethos, pathos and logos. Translated from latin, this means ethical, emotional and logical. In the play Antigone by Sophocles, the characters frequently make use of these tools when attempting to persuade another character to conform to their beliefs and thoughts. Antigone tries to get her sister, Ismene, to help her in a crime that she believes is just. Haimon attempts to lessen Antigone’s sentence by lecturing his father about what it means to be a good leader, and the Chorus is just trying to help out anyone they can with wise words from a third party opinion.
Throughout time, people have always fought for freedom and the chance to express what they believe regardless of who or what stands in their way. Both Martin Luther King Jr. and Antigone symbolize key figures who stood up for what they believed in, fighting for the good life for both themselves and the community around them. Although both cause conflict, protest unjust laws to achieve change, and approach a comparable situation of fighting injustice in society similarly, they had different stakes had they failed. The magnitude of the stakes differ from one another but in both cases, their stakes and what they stand to lose justify the actions they take, as they are not only trying to prevent further conflict but also trying to teach future
While Dr. King and Antigone may have had somewhat similar views in regards to fighting against an oppressor, their actions were polar opposites with Dr. King’s passive written words and Antigone’s suicide. Regardless of their differences, both Dr. King and Antigone had their desires fulfilled, even if they were not fully present when this occurred. This proves that while civil disobedience can arise in many forms, it can be an effective way to combat corruption in any
Fate Against Power “Father, the gods instill good sense in men, the greatest of all things which we possess.” (Lines 776-777) Haemon attempts to persuade his father to do the right thing by involving gods in his plea, which were perceived to have valuable opinions by the people. In Antigone, by Sophocles, a rather large disagreement involving Creon’s belief of putting Antigone to death as a resolution for her breaking his law and Haemon’s claim that it is wrong to follow through with such a severe punishment for such a minor crime, comes between a father and his son, emphasizing the characteristics of cruelty, arrogancy, and sensitivity that prove Creon as a tragic hero, thus advancing the plot of the play.
From world wars to present day national elections, pride can always be connected to many appalling, life-changing issues. Pride has always either been negative or positive, and it has been around forever. In the epic play Antigone, Sophocles demonstrates how Creon’s hubris allows for the downfall of himself and the killing of his family. Creon’s fatal flaw is his hubris. Creon not only loses his family, he also loses the trust of his people.
Political activists and philosophers alike have a challenging task of determining the conditions under which citizens are morally entitled to go against the law. Socrates and Martin Luther King, Jr. had different opinions on the obligation of the citizens in a society to obey the law. Although they were willing to accept the legal punishment, King believed that there are clear and definable circumstances where it would be appropriate, and sometimes mandatory, to purposely disobey unjust laws. Socrates did not. Socrates obeyed what he considered to be an unjust verdict because he believed that it was his obligation, as a citizen of Athens, to persuade or obey its Laws, no matter how dire the consequences.
Although both Antigone, from “Antigone” by Sophocles, and Martin Luther King Jr. from “Letter From A Birmingham Jail” engage in acts of civil disobedience and fight for what they believe to be right, the way they go about these acts is quite different. Each of their reasons, actions, and consequences can be seen as opposites. Antigone refuses the help or involvement of others, which can be seen as a selfish act directly against the king while Martin Luther King Jr. involves the entire community to help the greater good. Antigone is a character who stands up for what she believes in to a point of direct civil disobedience toward the king, Creon. She puts the laws of the gods over the laws of her authority.
In Sophocles’ Antigone, the king, Creon, is driven mad by the deaths he caused, those of his niece, son, and wife, and Antigone, Creon’s niece, is killed for doing what she believes to be right. He represents the consequences of their actions, Antigone’s death and Creon’s descent into madness, by mentioning of several Greek myths. He also uses these myths to illustrate the emotions that drive each character to act. Sophocles first introduces mythology in the prologue, when Antigone says to her sister, Ismene that she should bury her brother, a traitor, in spite of Creon’s edict, rather than spurn the, “laws of the god,”(Sophocles 63).
In Sophocles’ play Antigone, Creon, the king of Thebes, best represents a tragic hero. Creon demonstrates goodness in his intentions for Thebes as well as his fragile state due to the fact that he recently lost several family members. Creon, newly named king, finds himself as highest ranking official around, showing superiority. Creon often acts stubborn and prideful, his tragic flaw. And lastly, he must come to terms with the fact that he caused the death of his wife, son, and niece.
The drama Antigone places the culture of Greece on display by showcasing the many values that this culture held in reverence, including remaining loyal to family, honoring the dead, and honoring the gods. In Sophocles’ renowned drama entitled Antigone, one of the main values that Antigone chooses to honor is loyalty to family, even when that means that she has to forgo loyalty to her city and community. Even though her uncle the king, Kreon, forbade anyone to bury Polyneikes’ body because he had been on the opposing side in the battle, Antigone felt a duty to her brother to bury him. When speaking with her sister, Antigone says that Kreon’s command “…threatens our loved ones / as if they were our enemies” (Antigone 14-15).
