She will only accept complete or no help at all, demonstrating how her decision is made in absolutes, with Antigone considering no other factors or consequences that may come as a result. Antigone demonstrates her resolve and her solitary motivation, as she brushes Ismene off harshly at any hint of hesitation. To do that indicates that she tolerates disloyalty to an extreme level, even if it comes from another member of her immediate family, even her own sister. This also reveals the fatalistic nature Antigone, as she says she is ready to die by breaking the law. By dying with her brother, Antigone feels like she would be more content than living on her own knowing that her brother is not being respected in his death.
She tries to control what she can, for example, instead of letting her sister join her in the execution, Antigone declines her and sends her off. Antigone’s most important trait is also the fatal flaw that leads to her own demise. Antigone is so loyal ad determined to bury her brother that she would go against the word of the king to do so. It is because of this determination that she antagonizes Creon into sentencing her to death. Sophocles not only portrays Antigone as a tragic hero, but also as a martyr.
I completely agree with the thoughts and point of view of Antigone over those of Creon in the play Antigone . I'm choosing the side of Antigone because I see her as more of a protagonist and creon more as the antagonist, she has the better point of views, and I think that her thoughts on her brother's burial were more sane and humane. It was also her brother that they were fighting about and she has the right to say what they should do. This paper explains my views on why I think that Antigone had the better point of view. Antigone was completely and utterly right through the whole book and creon was completely wrong.
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.
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 stands up for what she believes in and does not give up without a fight. Ismene is persistent to comply with Creon’s laws. Creon strongly believes that men are superior to women. Creon was too stubborn to understand Antigone’s action of breaking men’s law by burying her brother. Sophocles shows that he agrees with Antigone’s beliefs and wants the reader to learn from Creon's mistakes.
In the greek tragedy, Antigone, written by Sophocles and translated by Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald, Creon and Antigone have shown many similarities. When Antigone and her sister return to Thebes they plan on helping their brothers Eteocles and Polyneices. The two brothers were in battle and when they were fighting they ended up killing each other. Eteocles was buried properly but when it was time to bury Polyneices Creon did not allow it because he believed he was traitor. Antigone broke Creon’s law by burying her brother and in the act of doing so, she was caught.
A tragic hero is typically known as a literary character whose judgment inevitably leads to their devastating downfall. Antigone by Sophocles is typically the novel that one would compare to a great classic tragic hero novel since it was developed in the Greek tragic era. There were three main characters and each possessed their form of folly. Antigone the main character died for conscience while Creon suffered for hubris from leading his “society”. While Haemon died for the voice of reason.Justice and morality is portrayed throughout the novel yet who is actually the culprit of prideful manner in Antigone?
What makes a tragic character? “According to Aristotle, hamartia, a tragic flaw; hubris, excessive pride; peripeteia, the reversal of luck; anagnorisis, the realization; nemesis, bad luck that the hero cannot avoid; and catharsis, the relinquishment of vigorous emotions from the readers, are attributes of a tragic character.”(Johnston). In Sophocles ' play, Antigone, there are opposing views about who the real tragic character was. While Antigone is considered the tragic character in this play by some people, Creon should be awarded the denomination of the tragic character; he has more qualities of a tragic hero than Antigone. Although one can argue that since Antigone is of a noble status, she is the tragic hero.
The fact that Antigone was stubborn and wanted to bury her brother no matter the cost teaches us this lesson. It can also be seen in Creon’s unwillingness to give in to Antigone no because he didn’t want to be looked at in a certain way. Instead, he lost everything that he had and was left at the end of the play in great pain and alone. The story Antigone was a classic Greek tragedy, a continuation of the immense tragedy that has already befallen the house of Oedipus. “Tragedy has a satisfying, redemptive ending because the events in tragedy are arranged so well that we would not have the play end any other way, we accept the conclusion” Antigone does indeed satisfy that requirement as a tragic play.