Antigone Defies Creon

In Thebes, after the civil war between brothers, King Creon decreed that the traitor Polynices would not be buried—his body would be left exposed as a punishment and a warning. Burying an enemy of the state was forbidden on penalty of death. Yet Antigone, sister to both the righteous Eteocles and the traitorous Polynices, understood that her duty to her family transcended her duty to the state. She believed that even traitors deserved the dignity of burial, and that the gods required proper funeral rites for all the dead. Antigone chose to defy Creon's decree and to bury her brother, understanding full well that this act would cost her life. When discovered, she refused to hide her actions or to deny her convictions. Instead, she stood before Creon and asserted that she had acted rightly in honoring the divine law that transcended human political authority. She would not ask for mercy or claim that circumstances forced her hand. She accepted her sentence—being entombed alive—as the consequence of her choice to uphold what she believed to be just. Antigone's vindication came not in her lifetime but through the recognition, by all subsequent ages, that she had acted rightly. Though Creon's power was absolute in the state, history vindicated Antigone's judgment. Her willingness to suffer for what she believed was right, and her refusal to compromise her principles even when facing death, established her as one of the exemplars of virtue in Western literature. Vindication—the eventual recognition that one acted rightly, even if immediate circumstances seemed to defeat one—sometimes requires long patience. Yet those who maintain commitment to principle despite opposition may ultimately be vindicated by history and by the moral judgment of humanity.