Antigone And Creon Essay

Full of drama and tragedy, Antigone can be used to relate to current conflicts. One such conflict is that between Haemon and his father Creon. Haemon looks up to Creon with honor and pride, but as conflict arises, that relation is disassociated and new feelings grow. The first conversation between them is what initiates the downfall of their bond. While it seems that Creon is the most important person in Haemon’s life, Antigone is in fact the one that has won Haemon over.

Antigone is the daughter of Oedipus, the king that married his own mother, Locaste and unwittingly killed his father, Laios. When he learned what he had done, he blinded himself and left Thebes, voluntarily went into self-style exile and died over there. Antigone and Ismene are siblings, the only surviving children of Oedipus. The other two brothers Polyneices and Eteocles quarreled and killed each other in a battle when Polyneices returned to assault Thebes, then Creon, Antigone uncle became the king of Thebes being the only heir in line to the throne. Creon ordered Polyneices be left to rot unburied on the battle field as a traitor but Antigone could not see reason to let her brothers body rot unburied. Antigone

     Finally, Creon is a dynamic character. He undergoes changes in emotion throughout the work. He realizes his mistakes when Tiresias forecasts the future. Thus, Creon attempts to correct himself by releasing Antigone. But he is too late. He is forced to live, knowing that three people are dead as a result of his actions. This punishment is worse than death. Although Creon’s self-righteousness and inflexibility did not change until the end of the play, his motivations traveled from patriotic ones to personal ones. This created a major portion of the

Creon orders the guards to take Antigone away not caring for his son's feelings, since she is his fiancée. Creon feels the law should stand despite the fact that Antigone was his niece or how moral her act was. "Bring her [Antigone] out! Let her die before his eyes..." (Scene 3, 130). This quotes shows that Creon took his position as king seriously to the point where in he was willing to sacrifice the feelings of his own son. He was willing to be the cause of son's destruction just to prove that he is the king and always right. "I will go... I buried her, I will set her free" (scene 5, 102,104). Not only does this quote show leadership but also stubbornness he was risking his relationship with his son to prove that he was the leader of Thebes. Creon says another quote which shows his loyalty to his kingdom, "I call to God to witness that if I saw my country headed for ruin, I should not be afraid to speak out plainly," (Sophocles, scene 1,24-26). It shows his strong sense of leadership which catches up with him in the end causing destruction.

     In Sophocles’ play Antigone, Creon was engaged in a conflict with Oedipus’ daughter Antigone. Creon and Antigone did not see eye-to-eye the entire play due to extreme differences. Creon and Antigone had many similarities despite their enormous discrepancies. Having as many differences as they did, it made them uniquely similar in numerous ways. The similarities that Antigone and Creon shared were independence, loyalty toward their views, cruelty and arrogance (“The Similarities”). The connection shared by Antigone and Creon showed that as hard as Sophocles tried to make them diverse, he made them unintentionally equivalent at the same time.

In the Greek play Antigone writer Sophocles illustrates the clash between the story’s main character Antigone and her powerful uncle, Creon. King Creon of Thebes is an ignorant and oppressive ruler. In the text, there is a prevailing theme of rules and order in which Antigone’s standards of divine justice conflict with Creon’s will as the king. Antigone was not wrong in disobeying Creon, because he was evil and tyrannical. The authors of “Antigone: Kinship, Justice, and the Polis,” and “Assumptions and the Creation of Meaning: Reading Sophocles’ Antigone.” agree with the notion that Antigone performs the role of woman and warrior at once. She does not only what a kinswoman would, but also what a warrior would do.

First off, Ismene, Antigone’s sister, actually was the one that incited Antigone's actions that led to everything else that happened in the story. Without Ismene, there would not be a plot. In lines 52-59, Ismene said to Antigone “What? You'd bury him— when a law forbids the city?” Antigone replied “Yes! He is my brother and—deny it as you will—your brother too. No one will ever convict me for a traitor.” Ismene said “So desperate, and Creon has expressly—” and Antigone interrupted with “He has no right to keep me from my own.” Here Ismene is telling Antigone that her actions are not something that are legal and that comply with Creon’s laws. Antigone, being hard-headed, decides that she is not going to let a law determine what she does for

In the Greek tragedy Antigone, the characters Antigone and Creon can both be thought of as the tragic hero of the play. Though Antigone does show some of these characteristics of a tragic hero, Creon demonstrates the attributes more clearly and concisely. Creon is the King of Thebes, as well as the uncle of Antigone. Creon took the throne after a tragic quarrel between his two nephews, Eteocles and Polyneices. Despite his harsh governing and his crude ideals, he is not good or bad. Creon is the tragic hero of the play Antigone, because of his superiority in his society, his nobility, and his tragic flaw, self-pride.

Every Greek tragedy must have a tragic hero. In Sophocle’s play, Antigone, the most tragic hero is Creon. He is an essentially good man of high position who takes pride in his role as king. He possesses the tragic flaws of excessive pride and an oversized ego. This causes the tragic reversal that leads to his emotional ruin and eventual remorse and repentance.

   In the Antigone, unlike the Oedipus Tyrannus, paradoxically, the hero who is left in agony at the end of the play is not the title role. Instead King Creon, the newly appointed and tyrannical ruler, is left all alone in his empty palace with his wife's corpse in his hands, having just seen the suicide of his son. However, despite this pitiable fate for the character, his actions and behavior earlier in the play leave the final scene evoking more satisfaction than pity at his torment. The way the martyr Antigone went against the King and the city of Thebes was not entirely honorable or without ulterior motives of fulfilling pious concerns but it is difficult to lose sight of the fact

The qualifications of a tragic hero vary between Aristotle and Shakespeare. Aristotle thinks of a tragic hero as someone who is a noble character by choice and makes his/her own destiny, while Shakespeare sees a tragic hero as someone who is born of nobility and born to be important. Although both tragic hero's end in a tragic death that effects many people, not all tragic hero's fit perfectly into both categories. In Sophocles’ Antigone, Creon is considered a tragic hero. Creon follows Aristotle's definition of a tragic hero by being a noble character by choice, having important potential, and falls due to "miscalculations" with circumstances that are beyond control.

There has always been a great debate over who is the true tragic hero in Sophocles' Antigone. Many scholars would stake claim to Antigone possessing all the necessary characteristics of a true tragic hero, but many others would argue that Creon holds many qualities as well. It is hard to discount Antigone as a tragic hero, because in fact, the play bears her name, but from careful reading, Creon meets Aristotle's criteria exactly and fits perfectly into the role. In order to determine whether or not Creon is the true tragic hero, one must answer the question: 'What is a Tragic Hero?' In Aristotle's Poetics, he discusses the basic criteria regarding a tragic hero. Aristotle

Creon’s bad decision leads to his eventual downfall and demise. Creon realizes his hubris and his wrong decision a little too late. Antigone is already dead, and he cannot correct his wrong-doing. This makes the audience feel pity for him, for he

A tragedy, as defined by Ms. Tozar, is “the story of a falling from a high place to a lower place by a character.” In other words, a tragedy is a story of an individual who starts in a high position and descends throughout the story to end in a position that is lower than original position. The individual who makes the descent is known as the tragic hero. The tragic hero, as defined by Ms. Tozar, is “the character who falls from grace as a result of fate and/or a weakness. In the drama, Antigone by Sophocles, one could argue that there are many tragic heroes. However, the one who stands above them all is that of the character of Creon. Creon is understood by most as the tragic hero in Antigone as evident in his

In the play, Haemon is brought to his father to be informed off the news of his soon to be wife. In the discussion between Creon and Haemon, they speak of Haemon's obedience and Antigone's disobedience to Creon. Creon says, "So I must guard the men who yield to order, not let myself be beaten by a woman. Better, if it must happen that a man should overset me. I won't be called weaker than womankind" (Sophocles 211). Creon makes it clear that his reasoning relies on sexism and not what is truly just. Women are often downgraded to the status of a secondary role as shown in the story.