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Justice In Oedipus And Antigone: Play Analysis

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In the tragedies, Agamemnon and The Libation Bearers by Aeschylus and Oedipus the King and Antigone by Sophocles the idea of defining justice becomes a distinct repetitive theme throughout the plays. Based on the situations pertaining to family relationships Clytemnestra, Oedipus and Electra, define justice through family relationship, while Oedipus, Jocasta and Antigone define justice through personal forms by feeling guilty and sacrificing their own lives. Throughout these family tragedies, a never ending vicious cycle of taking a life for a life is used to avenge others in order to gain justice, which ultimately leads to destruction of family. In Agamemnon, Clytemnestra acts in order to achieve familial justice, by avenge her daughter, and as a result destroy her …show more content…

Antigone loved her family and believed they all should be treated equal. Therefore when Creon wouldn’t honor Polynices with a proper burial or allow anyone else to, Antigone knew it was her moral duty to bury him. Antigone told her sister Ismene, “I will bury him myself. And even if I die in the act, that death will be a glory. I will lie with the one I love and loved by him – and outrage sacred to the gods. I have longer to please the dead than please the living her: in the kingdom down below I’ll lie forever” (63). Antigone articulates that although it is against Creon’s orders, Polycines was their brother and he had asked her and Ismene to bury him, if it was every necessary. Therefore she chose her family over the state and committed the felony. This act allowed for Antigone to gain personal justice for herself by risking her life in order to honor her dead brother’s wishes. In context she was essentially risking her own life for the life of her

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