Antigone Defense Paper

Jake Wythers
Ms. Peifer
10 IB 5th Hour
11/26/2008

Antigone Defense Paper

Ladies and gentlemen of the court, today I am here to defend my client Antigone. She has been charged with treason on the grounds that by attempting to give her brother his deserved burial rites, she disobeyed a direct order from her uncle King Creon. She did disobey an order, but her actions were just. Every Greek deserves a burial so that he may have a peaceful afterlife. In addition, there is startling evidence that King Creon has an unhealthy obsession with power, and was not fit to make the law in the first place.

Greeks owe their allegiance first and foremost to the Gods above, and must honor their code. "But if thou wilt, be guilty of dishonouring laws which the gods have stablished in honour." (Fitzgerald 820) Antigone raises this point when asking her sister Ismene for aid. By refusing Polyneices his needed burial rites, Creon broke an important law of Olympus and condemned Polyneices' soul eternal unrest. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the true crime. Antigone should be praised, not persecuted, for her attempt to honor the Gods' laws against all odds.

King Creon believed that because Polyneices was an enemy of Thebes, he did not deserve a burial. However, who are we as mortals to deem who may be buried or not? The code of the Gods runs far above those of our own. And as Antigone said, "His own brother (Eteocles), traitor or not, and equal in blood" (824) Polyneices was still a member of the royal family. It was a harsh decision indeed to doom the soul of your own kin to wander the earth forever without rest. Antigone was again in the right by honoring her family.

Was King Creon even thinking logically when he forbade the burial of his own nephew? Is it really sane to show such disrespect, even to an adversary? "An enemy is an enemy, even dead"(824). In this statement, Creon shows that he is unable to let go of grudges and move on. He spited his nephew in death by decreeing that he was unworthy of burial rites. His anger was taken out on his neice Antigone when he sentenced her to death by stoning. Ladies and gentlemen of the court, Creon is not only wrong in sentencing Antigone, he may not be a fit ruler for the great state of Thebes.

Your honor, esteemed members of the court, as you can see my client Antigone is in no way deserving of her death sentence. Her actions to bury Polyneices were both honorable and just, worthy of praise, not punishment. The accuser King Creon is a spiteful man, and was wrong in his sentencing of Antigone. In conclusion ladies and gentlemen, Antigone deserves to go free.


Works Cited
Sophocles. "Antigone." The Internet Classics Archive. Trans. R.C. Jeblo. 04 Oct 2000. Classics.mit.edu. 26 Nov 2008.