Antigone Letter From Birmingham Jail Analysis

People often reflect on their past and look back at the times they regret. Most often people tend to regret experiences that caused him or her strife. However, others tend to look at these types of experiences and claim that they were a necessary part of their lives in order for them make sense of life. Antigone, from Sophocles’ Antigone, and Martin Luther King Jr and his “Letter From a Birmingham Jail”, engage in civil disobedience where both fight the laws of the land in order to follow a higher good with no regret. However, both do such in specific ways that ultimately differ from one another: Dr. King believes civil disobedience is a necessary moral obligation to defy unjust laws while Antigone believes it is necessary in order to please
In Sophocles’ Antigone, Antigone, on the other hand, believes her act of civil disobedience to bury Polyneices was justified due to her belief that the laws of the gods should be carried out above any man made law, including those declared by Kreon and that those who have passed away before her must be honored. In the beginning of the play, Antigone tries to convince her sister, Ismene, to bury the body of her brother. Ismene, at first, was skeptical, for she knew it was Kreon’s decree that no one shall bury Polyneices for he was a traitor to the state. However, Antigone thought otherwise. Antigone states, “I’ll lie there, dear to him, with my dear friend, when I’ve performed this crime of piety; for I must please those down below a longer time than those up here, since I shall lie there always. You, though, if you think it best, dishonor what is honored by the gods” (Sophocles 22-23). Antigone believes burying her brother is of higher standards than to follow the laws of Kreon, for the gods must be worshiped above all else and she follows her principles to the very end. A king may rule the land, but the gods rule all and it is this mindset that Antigone possesses that allows her to fulfill the gods’ wishes. Later in the play, when Antigone is questioned by Kreon himself, she denies nothing and bluntly states that his mortal laws are no match to the laws of the gods. She claims, “It was not Zeus who made this proclamation; nor was it Justice dwelling with the gods below who set in place such laws as these for humankind; nor did I think your proclamations had such strength that, mortal as you are, you could outrun those laws that are the gods’, unwritten and unshakable. Their laws are not for now or yesterday, but live forever…” (Sophocles 38). Antigone followed through her decision to bury her brother because the gods’ laws are eternal. It was Antigone’s strength to stand by her