Immorality In Antigone

Throughout history, laws have been deemed both moral and immoral based on an individual’s personal opinion. The morality of a law is completely subjective depending on a person’s unique perspective about the law itself and external factors accompanying the law. In Sophocles’s, Antigone, Creon passes a law that Antigone considers highly immoral because it directly violates the laws of the gods. Similarly, Thoreau elaborates on how the Fugitive Slave Act is immoral through his, “An Immoral Law” because describes how innocent citizens are sent into slavery based solely on discrimination. Furthermore, many citizens deem capital punishment in today’s society highly immoral because it legalizes murdering individuals for their crimes.

All laws works

In each discussed work, a specific party is wronged by the immorality of the set law. Beginning with Antigone, both Antigone and Polynices receive negative affects from Creon’s law. Foremost, Polynices is wronged by the law because it deprives his body of receiving a proper burial and mourning from his relatives, specifically Antigone. In return, the law also forbids Antigone of mourning the loss of her brother and respecting the gods. The law created by man, Creon, clearly defies the laws set by the gods, which will result in negative consequences for Antigone. Similarly to Antigone being wronged by man’s law, Anthony Burns in “An Immoral Law” is wronged by the immoral Fugitive Slave Act. Thoreau describes, “…Massachusetts last deliberately and forcibly restored an innocent man, Anthony Burns, to slavery” (Thoreau 1). Anthony Burns was clearly wronged by the passing of the Fugitive Slave Act because his life completely changed due to one person’s greed. If a citizen turned in a perceived runaway slave, he or she received compensation from the government. Burns fell victim to both the racism and greed in a person resulting directly from the immoral law. Just as Anthony Burns’ life was ruined by an immoral law, criminals have their life terminated as a result of capital punishment. Although criminals should be properly reprimanded based on the severity of their crimes, the death penalty is a highly immoral solution passed to deliver such punishment. Convicts are wronged by this law because they are forcibly murdered for their actions rather than making efforts to reform their lives. These people are deprived from life when instead they should be punished through different, humane means. Just as the laws negatively affect certain parties, the public’s response to each law coincides with its