Conflict In Antigone And Creon

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

During Sophocles’ time, plays pertaining to two genres- comedies and tragedies- were very popular. The story of the tragic hero was very popular where a man or woman would have idealistic and defining qualities coupled with a weakness or hamartia. The hero would recognize this weakness, as he or she would try to overcome or work around it. However, the hero would fail in this endeavor and would meet with a tragic end, which would be cathartic for the audience.1

Creon is an example of a tragic hero. He is one of the major characters in Sophocles’ trilogy that consisted of ‘Oedipus the king’, ‘Oedipus at Colonus’ and ‘Antigone’. Over the course of this saga, we see Creon’s character develop with noticeable flaws. In the first story, ‘Oedipus the king’, Creon is portrayed as a cool and rational advisor to Oedipus who tried to prevent him from taking rash decisions such as banishing himself. Creon ultimately fails, and his hamartia is revealed in the subsequent story ‘Oedipus at Colonus’. Creon’s hamartia was that he had a strong belief that his reasoning and decisions were