This study will examine and compare the models of justice presented by William Shakespeare in Hamlet, Sophocles in Antigone, and Plato in The Republic. The study will argue that Sophocles presents the most useful model for the modern world, because the struggle of the honest and courageous individual for justice against the powerful and corrupt state demonstrates a way to behave in the face of institutional evil.
Plato's model of justice is not justice at all. The ideal state about which he theorizes is based not on justice, but on propaganda, suppression, and an outright, blatant lie upon which his entire system of "education" is based. Plato's Socrates speaks at length about the nature of justice, but when it comes to actually establishing the "ideal" society, it becomes clear that true justice is not an element of that society.
Shakespeare's model of justice is nothing but vengeance delayed, a delay and a vengeance which leads to the death of many and a most uncertain future for the state after that bloodfest.
Creon and Antigone, in Sophocles' Antigone, stand in stark contrast to one another in terms of their views of justice. Creon's refusal to bury the corpse of Antigone's brother shows that his major concern is not justice but pride and revenge. Antigone, on the other hand, cares only about doing what is right according to the highest standards of kinship, of humanity and of the gods. She wants to bury her brother as much as Creon wants to prevent his burial. So much does she believe in justice that she is willing to die, and does die, for her faith to that justice. Antigone maintains her ethical determination with respect to her belief in justice, whereas Creon changes his mind and buries Polyneices---although he acts too late to avert the catastrophe prophesied by Teiresias.
Antigone shows herself to be fearless in trying to achieve justice for her brother, and obey the gods as well, by burying him. Her sister...