Antigone :: essays research papers

It takes a lot of courage to stand up and defend an action or idea that is forbidden by society. Not only did Antigone do that in Sophocles' story Antigone, but also comparing my life to the events that happened in Antigone, it was not long ago that I had to stand and take action on a forbidden idea. Antigone clearly disobeys King Creon's order that no person should bury Antigone's brother, Polynices, which is punishable by penalty of death. In this case, is Antigone's decision the correct one? Her actions affect many of her other countrymen negatively because they cause problems within the royal family, disagreement among the people and directly relate to the death of three people including her own. By burying her brother, Antigone knowingly and willingly went against royal orders and in doing so chooses her own death. She knows as well as anyone in the town that death would come to all that disobeyed Creon's order. Antigone says to this "no one will ever convict me for a traitor,"(Act I: Scene II: Line 361) and decides to bury the body, this is quite ironic because by burying her brother a traitor is exactly what she is convicted of being. This story somewhat relates to my life because there was an event that took place in High school that caused me to be viewed as a traitor, but at the same time in was in benefit of the school. In my High school there has and always been a mixed crowd of students such as blacks, whites, and Hispanics. At my school it was pretty obvious that blacks hung out with each other and whites hung out with each other. Towards the end of Davies 2 the school year I along with a couple of my friends started receiving races comments that where of course directed to the majority of the black students. As time went on the situation became worse. I was looked at as a traitor simply because I was always the one who hung out with everyone, not just the black students. I took the problem to the principal and nothing was done so we proceeded to go to the board of education and sure enough, Reginald F.