Antigone Versus Btk Killer

Antigone versus BTK Killer

The choice to side with family members or to side with the law when a problem arises is a conflict portrayed in real life and in literature. In "Antigone," by Sophocles, Antigone comments a crime against the law to save her brother's soul. A similar conflict arises today with the BTK killer. However, the daughter helped the law by giving a DNA sample to the authorities which lead to her father's arrest. Both Antigone and the BTK killer's daughter had options, made a decision, and faced the consequences.

In the story "Antigone," by Sophocles, Antigone makes a decision whether to follow the laws made by Creon, king of Thebes, and leave her brother unburied, or the laws made by God and bury her brother. Creon decrees that nobody is allowed to bury Polyneices, Antigone's brother, because he betrayed the city of Thebes. "Polyneices,-who came back from exile, and sought to consume utterly with fire the city of his fathers and the shrines of his fathers' godsÐ'... none shall grace him with sepulture or lament, but leave him unburied, a corpse for birds and dogs to eat, a ghastly sight of shame (Sophocles)." If Antigone follows the law and does not bury Polyneices, she would support the laws of the king and the city. She would not have to suffer any consequences that are attached to breaking the law.

Antigone has a strong belief in her religion, and leaving her brother, Polyneices, unburied, is forbidden by god. When talking to her sister, Ismene, Antigone describes her problems with leaving Polyneices unburied. "What, hath not Creon destined our brothers, the one to honored burial, the other to unburied shame? Eteocles, they say, with due observance of right and custom, he hath laid in the earth, for his honour among the dead below (Sophocles)." Polyneices's soul will not be able to peacefully rest if he is not given a proper burial. Antigone is able to obey her god and support her family by mourning over his body and giving him a proper burial. His soul will be sent to its proper place and be at peace instead of being left in a restless state, and his body will not be left in the open for animals to consume.

Antigone has a choice between following Creon, the king of Thebes, law, and leaving her unburied, or following god's law, which requires a proper burial. She decides to bury Polyneices and save his soul. "Such be thy plea:-I, then, will go to heap the earth above the brother whom I love (Sophocles)."

There are consequences for the choices Antigone makes, whether she buries Polyneices or not. If the does not bury Polyneices, she would be betraying her family, and also the laws of her religion. Polyneices's soul would not be put to rest, and Antigone would abandon her traditions of proper funeral rites. However, if she does bury Polyneices, she would betray the laws king Creon made. He decreed that anybody who buries Polyneices would be put to death by public stoning. Antigone would also have shamed Creon's authority over the Thebians.

Antigone chose to bury Polyneices, and caused a chain of punishments and suicides to occur. After Antigone was found to be the culprit of the deed, she was locked in a tomb away from the town. Before she was released by Creon, however, she hung herself. As a result of this, her fiancÐ"©e, Haimon, who is also Creon's son, kills himself after seeing that Antigone is dead. "Ð'...he straightway leaned with all his weight against his sword, and drove it, half its length, into his side; and, while sense lingered, he clasped the maiden to his faint embrace, and, as he gasped, sent forth on her pale cheek the swift stream of the oozing blood (Sophocles)." After his death, a messenger tells Haimon's mother and Creon's wife, Eurydice, that her son is dead. "She killed herself, with her own hands she stabbed

...