Moral Courage. After reading the story On the Rainy River, and the books, Antigone and Oedipus Rex, the reader can discern various instances where moral courage was displayed.

by jenile68 (student)

International Baccalaureate World Literature

How Much Courage do you Have?

Moral Courage: It is the courage to take action for moral reasons despite the risk of adverse consequences. After reading the story On the Rainy River, and the books, Antigone and Oedipus Rex, the reader can discern various instances where moral courage was displayed. However, there are a few instances where the opposite is true. Moral courage is always the best choice, no matter what the consequences are. Examining these examples of moral courage: those of Tim O’Brien, Antigone, and Oedipus, will show that moral courage is always the right choice.

On the Rainy River showed a lack of moral courage. In the story, a boy named Tim O’Brien received a draft letter from the Army to go fight in the Vietnam war. Tim felt that the war was unjustified and he did not want to fight. He ran away from home to a lodge in Minnesota near the Canadian border. The owner of the lodge, Elroy, let him stay without charge. After a few days, Elroy took him out on a boat and took him to the Canadian shore line. Elroy turned his back to the boy and was going to let Tim jump. Tim felt it was justified to get away from the war but he had no moral courage. Instead of running a way from his assignment, he could have gone to court as a conscientious objector. Tim would have showed courage standing up to the peer pressure all around him and the military. Sadly, Tim gave in. The last two lines in the book read, “I was a coward. I went to war.” In this story, when the time came for courage to be shown, Tim shrinks back in fear.

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In the book, Antigone, Antigone’s brothers Polyneices and Eteocles, killed each other in battle. One brother was fighting for good, the other for bad. In the story, King Creon declared that Polyneices, the brother fighting for bad, would not be buried. The king declared that if anyone tried to bury Polyneices, they would be put to death. Antigone’s opportunity to show moral courage had come. That night, Antigone buried the body of Polyneices and the next morning, the king heard about it. King Creon had the body uncovered and Antigone came back to bury her brother again. This time, the guards caught Antigone and arrested her. Antigone confessed to the king, however, she was not remorseful at all. Antigone said “I knew, all knew; how should I fail to know?” Antigone knew the right thing to do even if the consequence was dire. She held her ground until her death. On the other hand, King Creon showed no moral courage. He should have realized killing Antigone was wrong. His first clue was the wise advice his son gave him about what the people thought about Antigone. The second, was that he knew what the gods wanted to happen to a dead body regardless of what the person did. Bodies were to be buried not left for the birds and dogs. Despite this knowledge, the king let the pressure of other nations, knowing he did not follow through with his word, stop him from doing the right thing. Once he realized the error of his ways, it was too late. King Creon’s son, his wife and Antigone were dead.

Oedipus Rex is the last example of moral courage. When Oedipus was born, an Oracle foretold that he would kill his father and marry his mother. Because of this, his feet were bound and he was left in the forest to die. Oedipus was found and later adopted by the King and Queen of Corinth. Oedipus ran away from Polybus, the king of Corinth, when he heard of the curse that he would kill his father and marry his mother. This was the first time that Oedipus showed moral courage, because he fled to protect his family. Even though Oedipus left Corinth, he ended up killing his biological father, when he retaliated against King Laius of Thebes, when King Laius tried to push Oedipus off the road. Trying to defend himself Oedipus pushed back, pushing King Laius off the road and causing him to fall to his death. Oedipus then saved the city of Thebes from the Sphinx, a vicious animal that tells riddles. After Oedipus saved the city, Oedipus married Jocosta, the queen of Thebes, becoming king of Thebes. Jocosta was Oedipus’ birth mother. A curse fell on Thebes because King Laius was murderd and the killer was living in the city. No crops would grow women were giving birth to still borns and many were dying. To lift the curse, Oedipus had to find the killer of the former king, King Laius. Oedipus said that if the killer surrendered, he would not be killed, just banished. Oedipus returned to the same Oracle who told his parents that he would kill his father and marry his mother. This man, the Oracle, was named Teiresias. When asked by Oedipus who killed King Laius, the Oracle told him that Oedipus was the one who killed King Laius, and that Oedipus was blood guilty. At first, Oedipus was furious that the Oracle would say that his king committed the crime and accused Teiresias of the murder. After much investigating, Oedipus and Jocosta found the horrible truth. They found that dreaded curse Queen Jocasta tried to prevent, happened anyway. As a result, Oedipus committed suicide and he blinded himself. Even after all of this, Oedipus still showed moral courage. He had cursed the killer to banishment. He knew that if he left Thebes, he would save his people from the curse put upon the city. Oedipus thought the people would prosper and would be happy. As a good king, he always wanted the best for his people and he knew what the right thing to do was, to leave. This is exactly what he did. Even though he did not anticipate the tragic event that occurred, he showed that he had moral courage and as a result, he saved many lives.

From reading these stories, even though moral courage might be hard to show, it is best for everyone and can be done. Thebes began to prosper again because Oedipus left and the gods were not angered because Antigone showed moral courage. In contrast, in On the Rainy River, the war was prolonged and lives that could have been saved were lost because Tim O’Brien went to war. The life lesson the reader can learn is that it might be hard, it might not be to your benefit, but do the right thing.