Antigone And Creon Essay

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In the case of the Sophoclean tragedy Antigone, the consanguineous obligations of Antigone and the populist duties of Creon are highly intertwined with the concepts of justice and morality. From Hammurabi’s Code to Hitler’s totalitarianism, justice has evolved and molded to society throughout history. Usually, where justice is found, moral struggle resides. At this point, it is crucial to clarify the difference between the two above terms. Justice regards matters of governance and the rights of the people, while morality applies to one’s personal ideas of right and wrong as effected by motives such as pride, love, greed, or hatred. Sophocles employs Antigone and Creon to represent two conflicting just and moral concepts, which allows the reader to draw the true definition of justice and morality from the concurrence of the two ideas. …show more content…

Because of their responsibility to create “a more just society” Creon and other officials attempt to do good for the majority (Polis, 2). In doing so, Creon becomes fixated upon doing right. No matter what, as a ruler, he wants to protect the state and its people; this leads to self-righteousness. This disregard for others’ thoughts and feelings leads him to believe that his son is “the woman’s champion” after he rules that “death will do it” and breaks apart his son’s marriage in order to uphold the written law. Whether it is his own son Haemon’s advice that “another man, too, might have some useful thought” on the subject or Tiresias’s objection to his “tumult of hatred”, Creon believes dissenters “lust for injustice!” These aforementioned examples show how blind-trust in written law leads Creon to become a tyrant-like leader. Similarly, Antigone’s blind-trust in her moral code causes her to feel the same superiority and the righteousness that Creon exhibits, even though she is set to die a

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