Antigone will not be dead if she obeys Creon’s law. Creon says, “He who disobeys in any detail shall be put to death by public stoning in the streets of Thebes” (lines 36-37). Creon says this to show he is stern and means what he says. Antigone disobeys the law to honor her brother by burying him, and she is sentenced to death. Creon is willing to kill Antigone, his niece, to back up his word and gain the people’s respect. Creon orders, “I’ll find a cave in some deserted spot and there I will imprison her alive” (lines 73-74). Creon is saying Antigone will be buried alive.
Almost always, in Greek tragedies a “tragic hero” has a hamartia, or tragic flaw, which will cause their concluding demise. In the Greek playwright, Antigone written by Sophocles, the interesting character, Creon, is a prime example of this. According the Aristotle’s theory, to be a tragic hero you have to have three traits: a flaw, a fall, and acceptance of your current situation. Creon’s flaw is his ego, which blinds him and lures him to do rather profane activities. Due to Creon’s ego, him losing everything caused by that very hamartia, and acceptance of the series of unfortunate events that occurred; Creon is the tragic hero in Antigone
Creon shows an extraordinary amount of stubbornness throughout the story. An example is seen when Antigone wishes to give her brother, Polyneices a proper burial so he can have a pleasant afterlife with the Gods. Creon, as king wishes to have him rot in the fields because he turned his back on the state in which the events occurred.
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
Tragic heroes are not only exemplified in fictional stories, but also in the existent world. A tragic hero is a person who is destined for great success; however, their personal flaw tragically demolishes their heroic destiny. Three main theories of the tragic hero are the Aristotelian model, the Shakespearean model, and the modern tragic hero. Each model has five defining characteristics, which are nobility, hamartia, downfall, anagnorisis, and suffering. In the Shakespearean mode of tragedy, the play Romeo and Juliet best models the tragic hero. For instance, nobility is characterized by being upper class and having elevated character. Romeo satisfies both these criteria through his position as
A hero is not always someone with power. A true hero can be a person that inspires you to be better in life. Many heroes simply help other in danger. Police officers, firefighters and even doctors give people strength to overcome problems. What kind of qualities makes a hero? In the play Antigone, the play writer Sophocles had different type of qualities for a hero. The character of Creon is a true tragic hero that wants to be respected by the city. His pride for the city caused pain to his family and himself.
“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.
Creon, with his hubris, does not listen to the words of his son, Haemon. When he reluctantly calls for the release of Antigone from her imprisonment, he is too late. She has died and Haemon kills himself after failing to kill his father. “Nothing you say can touch me any more. My own blind heart has brought me. From darkness to final darkness. Here you see. The father murdering, the murdered son––And all my civic wisdom! Haimon my son, so young, so young to die, I was the fool, not you; and you died for me.” Creon implores that he has been blinded by his pride and that he didn’t see that Haemon’s ultimatum and love for Antigone would be the reason why Haemon would kill himself. Creon’s decisions have lead him to lose his son and his wife, which is where his downfall begins. Creon becomes the tragic hero because he has endured pain from the deaths of his family. By not listening to Teiresias or anyone, but only to himself because he believes what he is doing is right, the death of his loved ones were
Creon is the protagonist in Antigone, because his motivation throughout Antigone is the stability and wellbeing of Thebes. Moreover, Antigone is the antagonist in Antigone, because her motivation is selfish and deceiving. In Antigone the setting is Thebes post the death of both airs to the throne. Eteocles dies defending his country from his brother Polynieces which died attempting to reclaim his right to the throne. The conflict throughout Antigone is Antigone’s responsibility to bury her brother Polynices and the law created by Creon, the new king of Thebes, which states that “No one shall bury him, no one mourn for him.” (Antigone 59) Antigone proceeds to disobey the law and dies in her own hands to ensure her own martyr status. Antigone is not the protagonist because of her selfish motivation and need to
¨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.
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.
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.
A second strong reasoning showing this is that he was doomed to make a serious error in judgement. The main explanation he was doomed to make a serious error in judgement is because of his uncompromising ego. In the story it states, “Do you want me to show myself weak before the people? Or to break my sworn word? No, and I will not. The woman dies.”. Creon does not want to be viewed as weak before the people. Being that he is a fairly new leader, he is very impressionable. First impressions are the most important, as they say, so does he want to look wrong, or does he want to look strong-willed and independent? If one were to look at this quote, he is practically he is admitting that he is wrong, before he actually admitted that he was wrong. As if Creon knew Haemon was right all along, but he just does not want to appear weak. Another reasoning for Creon being doomed to make a serious error in judgement is because of his appetite to have justice, whether or not that justice was the right or wrong thing to do. In the text it states, “You know your orders: take her to the vault and leave her alone there. And if she lives or dies, that’s her affair, not ours: our hands our clean.”. Creon has the mentality that because what he thinks is the right decision, everyone, including the citizen of Thebes think that is a justified decision. In this quote, Creon is stating that whether she (Antigone) likes it or not, she is going into that tomb and
“With great power comes great responsibility.” - Ben Parker. A tragic hero is a character that makes a mistake that leads to their own downfall. In “Antigone”, Creon is the tragic hero. Creon is the tragic hero because he realizes that he made an irreversible mistake, he is born into nobility, and he is responsible for his own fate.
Creon has realize he has made many irreversible mistake in the story Antigone. When Creon was going to let Antigone go he finds her like this “Antigone had made a noose of her fine linen well and hanged herself.786” This makes Creon realize that what he did cause the death of Antigone. Creon has realized it was a terrible thing to do after he saw