Creon Is The Tragic Hero In Antigone

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.

Creon is, by Aristotle’s

He was blind to his own hubris and let all of these terrible things happen. He started out the play being strong about what he believed in and didn’t let anyone, even Teiresias, tell him that he was making the wrong decisions. In the end, Creon’s fate turned on him and he became the epitome of humiliation and regret. I feared Creon because he was a ruthless leader who let his own self kill three people. He might not have physically killed them, but his actions did. He sentenced a woman to death for trying to put her dead brother to rest. It didn’t matter that Eteocles betrayed his city. It was the god’s unwritten law for him, or anyone, to be buried. Antigone says, “Your edict, King, was strong,- But all your strength is weakness itself against- The immortal unrecorded laws of God.- They are not merely now: they were, and shall be,- Operative for ever, beyond man utterly.” (359-363) Creon denied this law because he thought that he was higher than the