Antigone And Brutus: A Holy Crime

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A “holy” crime is a crime that you commit for a good cause. Both Antigone and Brutus commit a “holy” crime. However, we have to decide whose crime was more holy. To do this we will look at the reasons for why each of them committed their crimes. Antigone’s crime in Antigone, by Sophocles, is more “holy” than Brutus’s crime in Julius Caesar, by Shakespeare, because of her intentions and the reaction of others to her crime.
The reactions of others to Antigone’s crime also helps us to determine its “holiness”. As expressed by Haimon “They say no woman has ever, so unreasonably, / Died so shameful a death for a generous act”(Sophocles Scene 3.63-64) one can see that Antigone’s home city, Thebes, even agreed with her crime. This quote also shows that Antigone committed a crime for a generous act, which is what a “holy” crime is. Furthermore, when Haimon says “everyone / Will tell you only what you like to hear”(Sophocles Scene 3.59-60) this implies that nobody agrees with Creon’s decision to punish Antigone. So, the only person who doesn’t think that Antigone committed a “holy” crime is Creon. Furthermore, even Creon, …show more content…

The city of Rome didn’t think that Brutus’s crime was holy. One can tell this since the Roman citizens started to rebel against the fact that Brutus killed Caesar. Therefore, the only people who thought that Brutus’s crime was holy would be Brutus and his fellow conspirators. Even after a while Brutus starts to doubt the “holiness” of his crime, this is expressed by when he says that he “[wishes] / Things done undone”(Shakespeare 4.2.8-9). Furthermore, Even nature itself reacted to Brutus’s crime. It did this by showing strange signs, such as a lion in the streets and people coming back from the dead. This helps show that nature is “out of balance” when the conspirators were getting ready to kill Caesar, which means that even nature is not okay with Brutus’s

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