Creon Tragic Hero Essay

In the short story titled “Antigone,” the author portrays Creon as a tragic hero by displaying flaws in Creon's character shown throughout the story. Creon’s character contains many flaws which lead to many problems. His decisions end up deciding the fates of his son, his wife, and Antigone. Creon finally realizes that what he has done is sinful to the gods. He has put his own pride over the appreciation of the gods.

The tragic hero is a character in a book that comes from a noble background that has a tragic flaw which brings the character the greatest suffering which results in their downfall. In “Antigone”, there are two characters who can be considered the tragic hero of the story: Creon and Antigone. Antigone is a brave and fearless women who dies for a noble cause, while Creon is a controlling and powerful king of Thebes. Both Creon and Antigone have qualities to make them the tragic hero, but Creon is the true “tragic hero” because his hamartia causes his downfall. Creon is the tragic hero of “Antigone” because his hubris muddles his judgment and makes him cause his own undoing.

Tragic heroes are apart of almost all plays worldwide weather you know it or not. In the play Antigone. One of the main characters who is the king of the city,Creon, is the tragic hero for three main reason. First of all he is born into nobility, he meets a tragic death, and lastly, Creon is endowed with a tragic flaw.

Of the one hundred and twenty plays and tales Sophocles had written during his time, only seven have survived to today and Antigone a tale of the constant turmoil of the royal family of Thebes is one of those few ancient tales. Creon, the new king of the city of Thebes, strives for justice and absolute loyalty to the crown, however, after he discovered that an unidentified citizen had defied one of his recently announced laws, he inflicted his fury on himself and those around him. Creon is the tragic figure that functions as an instrument of the suffering of others and contributes to the tragic vision of the story, Antigone by Sophocles, as a whole by threatening his subjects and family with death, ignoring the thoughts of his elders and peers, and bringing the feeling of death to himself and also death itself to those around him.

In every piece of literature, there are multiple kinds of characters. In Greek literature, the tragic hero often makes an appearance. Sometimes, there is more than one. A tragic hero is one whose tragic flaw leads to the suffering of others and their downfall. In Antigone, a Greek tragedy written by Sophocles, there are two characters who could be considered tragic heroes. Creon, the King of Thebes, is the tragic hero because of his tragic flaw, hubris, his awareness in the end that it led to his downfall, and his fate that leaches a lesson to the audience.

All people can have power in our world, but only a few can have power and fewer can wield it with control in “Antigone”. Creon in the play “Antigone”, is the tragic hero because of the choices he makes and the way he acts. Creon is the tragic hero because he was born into nobility, responsible for his own fate, and doomed to make a serious error in judgement.

Sophocles depicts the contrast and clash between two people with opposing views in his play ‘Antigone’. One of those people is Creon, the highly motivated king of Thebes who takes pride in his own decisions that he believes to be right and sensible for the state and believes in a form of justice that can’t be compromised. The other person is Antigone, the protagonist and the daughter of the earlier king of Thebes, Oedipus. She places her faith and adheres to the irrational laws of religion and goes against the laws of man, thus defying common reason. We see more nuances to their defining attributes throughout Oedipus’s works. Creon, who is initially portrayed as a logical and pragmatic man, reveals his obstinate nature by his refusal to acknowledge viewpoints differing from his and Antigone

A tragic hero is defined as someone of high power or royalty who brings upon his or her own downfall as a result of a flaw found within the character. In Sophocles’s “Antigone” there are possibly two tragic heroes. Both Antigone and Creon have similar traits of a tragic hero. Although the story is named after Antigone, I believe that Creon is the true tragic hero of the story as his ignorance and pride prove to be his tragic flaws.

What is a tragic hero? A tragic hero is a character who makes a judgment error that leads to their downfall. In reading Antigone, There has been a realization where Antigone had a few tragic flaws. Her loyalty to the gods, her disloyalty to King Creon, and her stubbornness are three good flaws that can make a tragic hero. Meaning that in Antigone, The tragic hero is Antigone.

In Sophocles “Antigone”, Creon is known to be the tragic hero of the story. Sophocles shows that Creon is a tragic hero by all his attributes that appeared all through the story. Creon is a character that is anything but difficult to identify with in various ways. To start with, he contains numerous flaws within the story which in result causes numerous issues. Creon won't listen to anybody. He is tenacious and his pride is so extraordinary, he can not force himself to recognize that he could ever off-base. This is found in the choice he made of getting to be hubris. Hubris is a Greek expression for rudeness and has alluded to the feelings in Greek grievous saints and disregards the divine beings and consequently welcome catastrophe. Catastrophe is all that Creon achieved as the book advanced into the climax.

The play, Antigone, is a tragedy written by the Greek poet Sophocles. A common theme among tragedies is that they have a tragic hero, and Antigone is no different. The tragic hero of this poem is Creon, the King of Thebes. Creon is faced with the difficult task of punishing his niece, Antigone. She has broken one of his laws stating that no one is to give proper burial rites to Polyneices, Antigone’s brother, because he tried to overthrow Creon. Against the warning of others, Creon goes on with his plan to essentially sentence Antigone to her death. Creon continually ignores what others counsel him to do because he believes that just because he is king, everything he does is right. It is this thinking that ultimately leads to the death of not only Antigone, but also Creon’s son and wife as well. All tragic heroes suffer from a tragic flaw that leads to their downfall. Creon suffers from two tragic flaws, pride and stubbornness. Both of these flaws lead Creon down a path of destruction that he is unable to return from.

One characteristic of a protagonist that is found in Creon is his ability to start a cause and effect process. For example, when the play begins Creon is the King of Thebes and gives a speech to the people, “He who in his country’s cause fought gloriously and laid down his life shall be entombed and graced with every rite… The rest, I have proclaimed to be Thebes that non shall give him funeral honor” (Sophocles 9.194-205). Many say that this play occurred because of Antigone’s decision to bury Polyneices. However, if Creon did not make the decision of not giving Polyneices a proper burial, then the whole tragedy would not have occurred. There would be no consequences for the reason that the gods would be happy. In other words, one could say that Creon’s actions lead into this tragedy. Not only does Creon lead the way for this play, but he is able to make very important choices, giving him the title of a leading

When asked, “Who is the tragic hero in Antigone?,” you might automatically think of the character Antigone. The character’s name is the title of the play like in “Hamlet”. The only difference is that Hamlet was the tragic hero in “Hamlet” moreover Creon is the tragic hero in “Antigone”. It all comes down to the definition of Aristotle’s tragic hero. Aristotle states that a tragic hero is, “a person who must evoke a sense of pity and fear in the audience. He is considered a man of misfortune that comes to him through an error of judgment.” Notice that Aristotle uses the words he, man, and him and not she, woman, or her. This hints that the tragic hero must be a man, not a woman. A tragic hero must also have certain characteristics such as hubris, hamartia, peripeteia, anagnorisis, nemesis, and catharsis. These all mean that the character’s tragic downfall must have a beginning, middle, and end and emanate a feeling of pity and fear in the audience.

The play, Antigone is an Ancient Greek play mostly about myth written by Sophocles. There are two main characters in this play which are Antigone and Creon. Antigone is a girl who tries to bury her brother, Polyneices who died during the war and she chooses family instead of the government. Creon, is Antigone’s uncle, and also a King of Thebes who didn’t allow the people to bury Polyneices. He doesn’t like people who disobeys the rules of the government.They both are tragic characters because Antigone kills herself and Creon asks for his death to the gods.It can be argued that the tragic hero is Creon because of his excessive pride and his intense suffering at the end of the play.

Antigone’s tragic flaw is her love for her family. In the play Antigone, Creon creates a law stating that one of Antigone’s brothers, Polyneices, must not be buried for he was a traitor while the other, Eteocles, is buried with honors. “Antigone- Hasn’t Creon graced one with all the rights, disgraced the other? Eteocles, they say, has been given full military honors, rightly so-Creon’s laid him in the Earth and he goes with glory down among the dead. But the body of Polynices, who died miserably- why, a city wide-proclamation, rumor has it, forbids anyone to bury him, even mourn him.” (1.1 26-33) Also when her sister, Ismene, offers to share Antigone’s punishment with her, Antigone tells her to live her own life and not die by her side. “Antigone- Never share my dying, don’t lay claim to what you never touched. My death will be enough.” (1.1. 619-621) Creon’s tragic flaw is that he is stubborn beyond his years. Antigone’s tragic flaw can cause good to her and to others if used correctly, but it can also causing misery while Creon’s tragic flaw only causes pain and suffering to