Role Of Creon In Antigone

In the play Antigone by Sophocles there is more than one tragic hero. In the story the tragic hero of this play is Creon which is the king of Thebes. Creon’s flaw is his pride and stubbornness. He expressed these traits when challenged by his niece Antigone, and even his own son, through many different ideas, actions, and words.

After Teiresias left, Creon has a sudden change of heart and realizes that it would be in his best interest to let Antigone live. Upon arriving at the vault where Antigone is held Creon finds that she has hanged himself. Haimon is mourning at her feet, he then lunged at Creon and missed. Desperate he drove the sword into himself. Back at the castle Eurydice has heard the news and also commits suicide. It isn’t long

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.

As a result of Creon’s actions, poor Antigone committed suicide, hanging herself in her temporary prison. If Creon had not declared the law to punish anyone who buried Polyneices and sentenced Antigone to exile she wouldn’t be in her prison in the first place. Also if Creon was not stubborn and changed his mind quickly after being presented evidence by Teresias, precious time would be saved and Creon might have had a chance to free Antigone before she killed herself. Because of Creon’s declaration of the unjust law and his stubbornness that wasted time, death followed Antigone like a shark follows schools of fish. As well as Antigone’s death, Creon’s own son Haimon died as a result of Creon’s actions.

“Antigone” is a play written by Sophocles. It is a dramatic play that focuses on a feud between a royal family where Antigone, the princess is set on giving her dead brother a burial but this is restricted by the present king, Creon. Both of them have a tragic story. Many may believe that Antigone is a tragic hero, I think Creon is more of a tragic hero.

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.

Until Creon follows the simple burial rites, numerous misfortunes, including the deaths of his loved ones, will occur as a result of his actions. One may think that Creon must challenge the Gods because Antigone challenges his laws; however, fear of the Gods and guilt motivate Antigone to defy Creon. Antigone’s defiance does not lead to the deaths of others because she defies an individual who did not follow the law, while Creon’s disobedience ends in violence.

Antigone got captured when burying her brother and was sentenced to death, the only problem is that Creon’s son is engaged to Antigone. Haimon thinks that Creon should think about what he is doing and that every

Since Creon acted like this, his pride caused a string of deaths. The first death being Antigone as she hung herself in her cave, then Haemon followed when he failed to kill his father; he killed himself with his sword. Finally, Creon’s own wife Eurydice, committed suicide by plunging a dagger in her heart because of the news of Haemon’s death. These deaths are all examples of how pride can lead to faulty

Haimon strives to persuade his father to reassess his decision before anything bad happens. This metaphor indicates that if Creon is too stubborn or prideful, something terrible will happen if he continues on like this. Furthermore, after Creon threatens to kill Antigone in front of Haimon, he shouts, “Then she must die, but her death will cause another”(3 119). Because of Creon’s conceitedness, he does not realize what Haimon is genuinely saying and takes this as a threat towards himself. His own son hints at committing suicide, and he never figures this out because he is too obsessed with his own power to take Haimon’s opinion into consideration.

Creon: The Tragic Hero “One cannot balance tragedy in the scales Unless one weighs it with the tragic heart.” - StephenVincent Bene T. In the play Antigone, by Sophocles, I think Creon is the tragic hero in this play because he has a lot of pride, he thinks he is in control of everyone because he is the king, and he doesn’t listen to people. His main focus was his pride.

Since she spoke of her plans in such a public manner, it caused Creon to display a public response, which was to bring her to a walled-up tomb where she would die an awful death. What happens in the end is quite tragic; Tiresias, who is a blind prophet and a priest of Apollo, put a curse on Creon that speaks of terrible things that will happen to him. Creon, shocked by this, immediately retrieves a guard to go up and bring Antigone back. Alas it was too late, for Antigone had hung herself. Haemon, who was to be married to Antigone hears of this and with such shock, kills himself. Eurydice, who is Creon’s wife, also hears of the news of her son Haemon and how he took his own life, decides to take her life as well. When Creon hears of all of this, by a messenger, he asks his servants to immediately take him away, he wants to be forgotten,

Have you ever had a tragedy in your family? Have you ever been hurt by the death of a loved one or a close friend. In the play Antigone we see what true tragedy is and what makes a tragic hero. Creon is that tragic hero.

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

CREON. Another? Have you lost your senses? Is this an open threat?” (3.118-121)The gods must have robbed him of his common sense, because Haimon was trying to tell his father that he would commit suicide if he killed Antigone. Creon would not listen. He put his family on the backburner and forever burdened one of his dead nephews and Antigone, all because of his pride and his greed for power. That pride and hotheadedness turned into a big problem, as he would have preferred to, “End his life and die than live with the agony of his mistakes” (Exodos134-138). In Creon case his fate was caused again and again crossing the line between laws set by the gods and the laws set by man.