Question:
What is "conscientious objection"?In what ways does Antigone demonstrate conscientious objection?In your opinion, did she do the right thing? Explain your view in terms of how 21st Century citizens might view her actions.
Answer:
Conscientious objection is going against the established law to better suit your personal beliefs/morals. Antigone defies the law by burying Polynices whom she believes deserves an honorable and proper burial. I think she did do the right thing in terms of her time period and in terms of today's society. She says that because her and her brother's parents are dead, her brother is someone she can never replace as you could a husband or wife. She uses this to justify her actions, that although her brother may not have been performing honorable acts (going against his brother Eteocles, fighting for Thebes/against Thebes) he was still family and still deserved to be buried properly/justly. The same goes for today's society. Even if one of my family members was considered not honorable or good, they are still family, and if they died, they would not be left unburied and forgotten. They would still receive some kind of burial or funeral, properly.
"It was by this service to your dear body, Polynices, I earned the punishment which now I suffer, though all good people know it was for your honour. O but I would not have done the forbidden thing for any husband or for any son. For why? I could have had another huband and by him other sons, if one were lost; But, father and moster lost, where would I get another brother?...." -Antigone (pg. 150, Antigone)
"What law of heaven have I transgressed? What god can save me now? What help or hope have I, in whom devotion is deemed sacrilege?" -Antigone (pg. 150, Antigone)
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