3 Short Essays
The conversation between Crito and Socrates took place inside the prison wherein Socrates was waiting for his execution. His loyal friend Crito arrived earlier before the break of dawn to tell Socrates to save his life by escaping from prison. By escaping, Crito will keep him as his true friend and will not be accused by people that he did not do what was needed to save a friend’s life. However, Socrates does not care about the majority’s opinion. What he was concerned about is his friends’ would be in trouble from the authorities after he escaped. Additionally, escaping from prison would be an act of an evil, which contradicts on his admission that should not be done in any way. With all the convincing words from Crito, Socrates did not decide to escape as for him; his death serves him as a victim of men not by law, he is a sufferer not an evil doer, and his death is God’s will.
The legal concepts related to this story are first, Socrates being an unjust law victim; his friends will also be punished once he managed to escape from his death, and the majority’s power to make an individual as wise or fool. The people also have the power to put an individual into prison and death.
Antigone
Antigone is the daughter of Oedipus the king who unknowingly married her mother after killing his father accidentally. After her brothers were killed in a battle to fight for Thebes, Antigone was not in favor of letting Polynices’s (her brother) body left to rot after being accused as traitor by King Creon, her uncle and the new ruler of Thebes. Antigone defied his uncle’s law by giving his brother a proper funeral. She made this act as she was convinced that leaving his brother’s remains is an offense to the Greek Gods and she also believes that the Gods’ laws supersede a king’s rule. By doing such, Antigone was sentenced to be sealed in a cave by his king uncle and later hanged herself. King Creon was unaware that his decisions will bring him bad luck as it was mentioned to him by Tiresias, a future’s seer that Creon ignored. The king’s son, Haemon who happens to be Antigone’s boyfriend attacked his father after seeing her hanged dead, but missed and stabbed himself to death. The king’s wife also killed herself after seeing her son dead.
The legal concepts related to Antigone are the king’s decision not to give Polynices a descent funeral as well as his decision to send Antigone to her doom after her brother’s funeral.
A Jury of her Peers by Susan Glaskell
This story opens with a controversy that surrounds Minnie Wright, who is imprisoned as she was suspected to be her husband’s killer by strangling him. Her story was indirectly told through a dialogue between Missis Peters who is the sheriff’s wife and Missis Hale, wife of the man who discovered Mr. Wright’s body. While investigating, the two wives were in the Wright’s kitchen and they discovered two clues that would connect Minnie Wright’s case together; a bent stitching on one of the quilts that Minnie works on, and Minnie’s strangled canary inside her sewing basket. The wives then concluded that Minnie strangled her husband just as he did to her canary. They have decided not to tell their husbands regarding the result of their own investigation. What they did was, they repaired the quilt and invented a story about the canary’s disappearance. In silent involvement, both Missis Peters and Missis Hale cover up the evidences that revealed Missis Wright’s motive and silently acquitting Missis Wright from her wrongdoing without the knowledge of their husbands.
The legal concepts related to this story are the presence of both Missis Hale and Missis Peters inside the Wright’s house. They should not be inside the house while the investigation is going. Also, both of them should have not touched anything inside the house that may serve as an evidence of the crime.
