Antigone should not have received the death penalty for a number of reasons. First, Antigone should not be punished for burying her brother Polyneices because Antigone followed family law. In this case, burying a family member immediately after death should be the precedent. Antigone, unlike her sister Ismene, believes that both her brothers should have equal rights even after they died. This includes the right to a proper burial.
Another reason that Antigone should not receive the death penalty was that it was a serious of unfortunate events that created the problem. For example the battle should have never occurred because it was time for Polyneices to become the ruler. Eteocles was unfair because he did not respect the family ruling procedures. If Eteocles had turned over the leadership to Polyneices there would never have been a battle in the first place. Since tradition was not followed properly Antigone is not to blame. In conclusion, Antigone should not be punished with the death penalty because she was following appropriate ritual procedures.
2 comments:
Samantha, I agree with your argument. Like you said, burying a person after death is a divine law. Everyone deserves a proper buriel even if they commited something wrong. In fact, I believe Creon was going against the divine law. Although he is ruler, that does not make him more powerful than the gods.
Another point I wanted to make and further elaborate on after the discussion we had today in class, was the fact that Antigone was not considered a citizen. Therefore, if she is not a citizen she did not break the political law becuase she is not a part of it. As mentioned in class, Creon was searching for the MAN who buried Antigone's brother and not the woman. This goes to show you that women weren't a part of the political law.
Another point is that once Creon found out that Antigone buried her brother, it seemed like he altered the political law. A man was supposed to be punished for burying Antigone's brother, not a woman. He changed the law right on the spot when he realized Antigone did it.
Antigone does not deserve death and the conclusion to Antigone prooves it. Creon went against the divine law, while Antigone was only trying to follow it. Creon abused his power and Antigone was trying to proove this to him all along.
After observing the debate today in class I would have to officialy agree with Group B-Antigone did not deserve death. At first when he two groups presented their argements it seemed thst group A was much more clear and had a stronger arguement. But once the debate opened up it was shown that Group B really had some strong points to be made but they needed to be discovered through discussion because their points are much deeper than just straigh facts. Antigone believed in the unwritten law of the Gods. Her deffense of her familial and holy rights to me are much stronger than those of creon. Although creon follows the written political law and proves that she has clearly broken these laws it still should not matter, because this case deals with the laws of the Gods. And even though she techincally does not have these political rights she still has the right and obligation to give her brother a proper burial. Over all it is a tough arguement because when you mix political with holy laws it gets confusing, but ultimatley one should side with the Gods law, which is the ruler of everything, and therfore Antigone did not deserve death.
Post a Comment