Examples Of Hubris In Antigone

Many people in the modern era suffer from being too proud and only believing their own opinion is correct. In ancient Greece, this is called hubris. Hubris, to the Greeks, is having so much self confidence that a human thinks they are better than the gods. Usually the character exemplifying hubris is called the tragic hero. For example, in Sophocles’ Antigone, the tragic hero is Creon. Creon is the tragic hero of Antigone because his fatal flaw, hubris, causes the destruction of not just his family, but also himself.

To be a tragic hero, you must have a fatal flaw, Creon’s fatal flaw was hubris. He believes his authority was higher than the gods. Therefore, he made a law that prevented the god’s law of burying everyone from being acted on. Antigone tries to tell him that he is wrong and that he is disobeying Zeus’s rule, but Creon dismisses her as a traitor who is just trying

The king’s strong will and specific ideas cause him to ignore Haemon’s pleads to free Antigone. His stubbornness to listen and his negative outlook on people make Creon think that his son is only asking him to liberate Antigone because of his love for her, not because of what people are saying about the new law. Creon is so caught up in his own laws he omits the fact that Haemon says that he will never see his son again. When Creon finds Haemon crying over Antigone’s dead body, Haemon lashes out at him because Creon indirectly killed her. Haemon tries to harm his father, but misses; he decides to kill himself in front of Creon instead. When Eurydice, Haemon’s mother, hear this news, she kills herself as well. She could not stand the pain that her husband inflicted on her dead son, so she herself committed suicide. Her final words were a curse on Creon, a witness retold it saying, “Her curse is upon you for the deaths of both.” (3.1020) It was only after the deaths of his family that Creon finally realized what his stubbornness could