Antigone- by Sophocles (442 B.C.)
Dictionary.com defines law as, “the principles and regulations established in a community by some authority and applicable to its people.” This is different to what dictionary.com defines natural law as, “a principle or body of laws considered as derived from nature, right, or reason.” To me laws help define and outline between what is right and what is wrong (legal vs. illegal). In Antigone, we come across a dispute over such laws.
Two brothers, Eteocles and Polyneices, kill each other while fighting on opposite sides during the Thebes civil war. Creon, King of Thebes and uncle of Eteocles and Polyneices, orders Eteocles body a proper burial and Polyneices body be left untouched on the battlefield to be eaten by the carrion animals, the worst punishment at the time. Antigone, the sister of both E and P, wants to give Polyneices body a proper burial, which is against Creon’s ruling. Antigone is caught and later kills herself (as do Eurydice and Haemon) before Creon could take back his mistake.
This clash of values between Creon and Antigone are important to the play. Creon is strict in following the state laws. He demands his people obey the law, right or wrong. He says, “there is nothing worse than disobedience to authority.” On the other hand, Antigone believes in the higher law of the gods and natural law. She fells that the state laws can and need to be broken in an extreme case. In her situation Antigone’s case is about honoring the gods, whose rules certainly outweigh those of Creon’s. The moment of recognition for Creon comes when the blind prophet, Tiresias, informs him that the Gods side with Antigone. Creon realizes his mistake to place the law of the state above the law of the gods far too late, and three people have already killed themselves. But like in most tragedies, knowledge and wisdom are gained for some future happenings.
Antigone was right, and she fought for what she believed in as morally and logically correct. It was Antigone’s defiance and stubbornness that made this story, where natural law is above state law.(381)
Matt, interesting ideas. Would you say that in the play there is a conflict between law (civil? human?) and natural law, as you define it (principles derived from nature, right, or reason? Is Creon a representative of one and Antigone of the other? Or were you using those definitions to suggest something else. I think the fact that the dictionary reflects the existence of different kinds of laws is related to the ideas of the play.
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