ABSTRACT
First, the bare bones of Antigone’s case may be given as follows: Antigone defends the cause of her outlaw brother, Polynices. He has been slain in a battle that he initiated against his brother, Antigone’s other brother, Eteocles, whom he has killed. Creon, the King, decrees that the outlaw brother not be given a proper burial. Antigone, believing in a justice beyond the law of the state, contravenes Creon’s edict and is sentenced to death. Or, this is what Mandela states:
[Creon] has decreed that the body of Polynices, Antigone’s brother, who had rebelled against the city, does not deserve a proper burial. Antigone rebels, on the ground that there is a higher law than that of the state. Creon will not listen to Antigone, neither does he listen to anyone but his own inner demons. His inflexibility and blindness ill become a leader, for a leader must temper justice with mercy. It was Antigone who symbolised our struggle; she was, in her own way, a freedom fighter, for she defied the law on the grounds that it was unjust.1
