Examples Of Civil Disobedience In Antigone

Martin Luther King used civil disobedience to fight the unjust laws that were thrust upon his people. He would organize marches without permits, sit ins at white only establishments, and engage in activities that were strictly segregated. He believed that it was necessary and patriotic to go against unjust laws. They degraded humans. And he felt the actions he took against those unjust laws were just because they went against the human race and his and others morals. Antigone went against a law that hurt her morals, and degraded her family. She felt it was necessary to perform this act of burying her brother. Often, unjust laws are meant to be broken. They can be degrading or they can be against the morals of the people breaking them. To break

To her the law being unjust is not right, and she will disobey it even if that means she has to risk her life. The main way she does this is by burying her brother. Polynices was her brother, and even though he is told he should not have a proper burial and rot forever, Antigone disagrees. She needs to bury him. She believes it is her right to do so, she was “I wasn’t born to hate with the other, but to love both together” (Sophocles.Page 42. Line 642-643 ). Antigone will never hate her brothers. No matter what they did. Polynices will not have died in vain. She will make sure that he gets the proper burial that he deserves. Even if she risks her life for it. Her love is undying, even if the ones she loves are dead. This civil disobedience she portrays does not go unnoticed and she is put to death for this. But she cries out how she never defied the gods or justice, just an unjust man. She even believes that “Death is a god who wants his laws obeyed” (Sophocles. Page 41. Line 634-635). Antigone may not obey the laws created by creon, but the laws that make sense to her are the laws created by death, and she will not disobey his law. When it involves her brother she will make sure he will be buried properly so that the laws death has put up will be obeyed and her brother can have a peaceful

Her scrawny and less desirable features make her an outcast compare to her sister. Who is the epitome of grace and desire in this time and age. Because of this Antigone knew it was her duty to bring justice to an unjust law. Being an outcast to society gave her the courage and strength to do what her sister Ismene could never do. She challenged the law. Faced the unjust man himself. And in the end died knowing that she fought for a just reason. Just as Martin Luther King did. Although he was never an outcast to his people, to the racists and the moderates he was. He knew that going in he would be faced with people who opposed him. He had the courage to fight for the justice he knew would come after his long and strenuous battle. In the end he too died with his morals intact, and change on the