Her father committed suicide. Her mother committed suicide. Her two brothers killed each other in a battle for the kingdom. Her uncle, Creon, took the throne and decided to give one of his dead nephews, Eteocles, an honorable funeral and give the other, Polynices, nothing at all. He also made it clear that no one was allowed to as much as touch Polynices. Should anyone decide to try to take action against the law and bury him, they were punishable by death. Was Antigone supposed to have simply accepted the fact that she was to abandon her dead brother out in the open? Was she expected to leave his dead corpse outside the gates of Thebes exposed to the world to rot and be picked at by the birds? How could she do such a horrible thing to her own brother? The answer is simple: she couldn't.

Antigone...