Antigone Unjust Analysis

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Historically, there have been laws that discriminate against particular groups or individuals based on the desires of the ruling power. Some of the most extreme cases where both unjust laws and the legal system have been used to subjugate people include Nazi Germany, forced sterilization in Alberta, and the Jim Crow laws in the United States. These scenarios raise the issue of whether or not these unjust laws should be considered laws that should be obeyed - or whether these laws should have been ignored by the populace in favour of internal moral regulation. Sophocles' Antigone is a literary example of where, because of an unjust law, there was gratuitous and unnecessary death and it promotes the idea that there is a universal law that should be obeyed if human-made law is unjust. However, other theorists have set forth …show more content…
Antigone refused to obey the law of her future father-in-law and buried the body of her brother Polynices, declaring that she was beyond the Creon's reach when she felt no pain as he squeezed her arm in anger when she would not be swayed. Creon is forced to sentence her to death, despite his desire not to. His son and Antigone's betrothed, Haemon, commits suicide when he learns Antigone has died which in turn causes Creon's wife to do the same. This tragedy illustrates the concept of natural law well, as natural law theorists suggest that there is an unchanging, internal law that is inherent and universal to all humans that can be identified and obeyed but is beyond the power of humankind. For Antigone and other natural law proponents, a law that does not comply with this internal morality should not be obeyed because it is unjust and is therefore not a
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