Bernard Baffoe-Mensah
Ms. Milewski
AP English Literature
21st October, 2014 Civil Disobedience The order of society is based on structure and organization. Laws are enforced to serve specific purposes: economically, politically and socially. With regards to this, there are unjust laws and these laws conflict with an individual’s sense of morality. Being that, a civilian’s decision to disobey an unjust law is considered unlawful in the eyes of authority; however, such decisions are honorable because moral law is more valuable than civil law. With regards to Sophocles’ Antigone, Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience, and Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham jail, civil disobedience is a righteous act that oppose an unreasonable and unfavorable law. In Sophocles’ play Antigone, Antigone justifies her actions when she deduces her brother has the right to appropriate funeral rights. Also, she adheres to the principles of civil disobedience because she refuses to obey an unjust law and does not change her decision even at the point of death. According to Thoreau and King’s classification of civil disobedience, Antigone justifies her actions. According to Thoreau, “all men [have] the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable” (Thoreau 3). Giving reasons …show more content…
An individual must have to oppose the unjust decrees and edicts of a government irrelevant of the circumstance. More importantly, civilians need to realize the role they play in this world. As observed from the death of Antigone, civil disobedience can cause a change by the resistance and opposition of an individual. Also, governments should learn from the fate of Creon that power should be used to change lives positively. With this reason, our society can only progress if just laws are created and moral law supersedes governmental
Ms. Milewski
AP English Literature
21st October, 2014 Civil Disobedience The order of society is based on structure and organization. Laws are enforced to serve specific purposes: economically, politically and socially. With regards to this, there are unjust laws and these laws conflict with an individual’s sense of morality. Being that, a civilian’s decision to disobey an unjust law is considered unlawful in the eyes of authority; however, such decisions are honorable because moral law is more valuable than civil law. With regards to Sophocles’ Antigone, Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience, and Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham jail, civil disobedience is a righteous act that oppose an unreasonable and unfavorable law. In Sophocles’ play Antigone, Antigone justifies her actions when she deduces her brother has the right to appropriate funeral rights. Also, she adheres to the principles of civil disobedience because she refuses to obey an unjust law and does not change her decision even at the point of death. According to Thoreau and King’s classification of civil disobedience, Antigone justifies her actions. According to Thoreau, “all men [have] the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable” (Thoreau 3). Giving reasons …show more content…
An individual must have to oppose the unjust decrees and edicts of a government irrelevant of the circumstance. More importantly, civilians need to realize the role they play in this world. As observed from the death of Antigone, civil disobedience can cause a change by the resistance and opposition of an individual. Also, governments should learn from the fate of Creon that power should be used to change lives positively. With this reason, our society can only progress if just laws are created and moral law supersedes governmental