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 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.
Another characteristic that defines a tragic hero is that they experience misfortune that is not entirely deserved, and in this case, Creon did; he experienced the loss of both his wife and son. In Antigone, it states, Messenger:“we saw Antigone hanging by the neck/… Haemon had his arms around her waist-/ he was embracing her and crying out in sorrow for the loss of his own bride/...Angry at himself, the ill-fated lad/ right then and there leaned onto his own sword,” (Lines 1359-1377). After Antigone decided to take her own life, Haemon, Creon’s son and Antigone’s husband, saw Antigone’s body and decided to end his own life as well. Not only did Creon cause the death of Antigone, he also inadvertently caused the death of his son, Haemon. In addition to the death of his son, Creon also caused the death of his wife, Eurydice. In Antigone, it states, Messenger:“She killed herself,/ with her own hands she stabbed her belly,/ once she heard her son’s unhappy fate,”(Lines 1460-1462). Once Creon’s wife, Eurydice, received the news of her son’s suicide, she decided to take her own life as well. So, in addition to Antigone’s and Haemon’s death, Creon also caused his wife’s death because he refused to let Antigone go sooner than he did. This whole ordeal stems from Creon’s stubbornness which embodies the play’s tragic vision because it shows how one’s
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.
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.
Antigone is one of the greatest tragedies ever written by Sophocles. There is a controversial question about this play: Who is the tragic hero? Could it be Antigone or Creon? Even though the play’s name is Antigone, but as I read the story. A sensible and responsible king, Creon, is a tragic hero because of his power madness, self-righteousness, and ruthlessness. He is the center of the play, which causes events to happen.
“But now at last our new King is coming; Creon of Thebes.” After Creon sends Antigone to live in a cave until death, he realizes a mistake he’s made and tries to get her out. He realized it’s too late to try and save her. She's already dead, so is everyone he loved. Creon is a tragic hero because he was born into nobility, had an endowed with a tragic flaw, and realized they have made an irreversible mistake.
Creon’s strong feelings about Antigone burying of her brother transgressed him as the tragic hero because his stubbornness against her caused everyone to turn on him. Such as when Creon is talking to Antigone and he tells her “ In all of Thebes, you’re the only one who looks at things this way.” To which Antigone replies “They share my views, but they keep their mouths shut just for you.” This shows how Creon’s slowly being turned against because his stubbornness. Antigone admits to the burial of her brother and Creon orders her to a cave to survive as long as she can. When Creon’s son hears word of this he goes to talk to Creon and sees his stubbornness. Creon’s son Haemon kills himself when he finds Antigone dead, Creon's wife also kills herself once she hears of Haemon's death. Thus leading Creon to see the errors of his ways and leaving him in sadness over the death of his family, creating him the tragic
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.
In Sophocles’ Antigone, Antigone and Creon both have qualities of a tragic hero according to Aristotle’s definition. Aristotle believes a tragic hero is a decent human, but falls due to a weakness in one’s character. In the plot, Antigone decides to bury her brother, which defies the laws of Creon, the dictator of Thebes. Antigone believes she must hold her family values and the gods’ beliefs with utmost respect. Antigone refuses to deny her crime, so she is sentenced to be death by Creon. Antigone is the tragic hero because she inspires pity and fear when her devotion to the gods and her morals lead to her downfall.
“Whatever I touch has come to nothing.” Creon shouted this when he met his downfall. Antigone is about a princess named Antigone who buried her brother for moral beliefs. This was illegal at the time in the city of Thebes because the first thing that Creon did as king was make the law that no one can bury Polyneices and she was sentenced to death for this. Creon, king of Thebes, filled the prophecy and met his downfall with everyone he cared about had died and lead him to emotional death. A tragic hero is a person of noble birth with heroic or potentially heroic qualities. This person is fated by the Gods or by some supernatural force to doom and destruction, or at least to great suffering. Birth into nobility, responsibility for their own fate, and endowed with a tragic flaw, most strongly identify Creon as the tragic hero of Sophocles 's Antigone.
¨All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong.¨ This is one of the many concepts that tragic hero's fail to understand in greek tragedies. A greek tragedy is a play in which the protagonist, usually a man of importance, falls to disaster through the combination of a personal failing and circumstances that he cannot control. In greek theatre this protagonist is called a Tragic Hero. A tragic hero is someone who is born into nobility, and through his own doings, losses everything in the end.. In the story of Antigone by Sophocles , the character Creon is the tragic hero. Creon is a Tragic Hero because he was born into nobility, doomed to make a serious error in judgment, and realizes he made an irreversible mistake.
The character Antigone is the protagonist in Antigone, the second play out of the Oedipus Rex trilogy. Out of the trilogy she is apart of she is the most tragic figure, though other claims say that Creon is a more tragic figure. A tragic figure in Greek plays, according to Aristotle, is a fictional character in a story or play that has an error in judgment, known as hamartia. This error of judgment causes his or her own misery, known as peripeteia. In Greek plays, such as the one Antigone premiers in, this person is must be of nobility. A tragic figure also has a tragic flaw that incorporates into the story or play. This tragic flaw can be shown through arrogance, stubbornness, love, or any quality that usually causes conflict, this is known as hubris. A tragic figure also must be portrayed as relatable to the
His power as a king allows him to make his own laws, and even give sentence to those who can defy him. Because of his law, Creon has so much arrogance that when Teiresias informs Creon of his doom-laden prophecy,
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.