Loyalty In Sophocles Antigone

The play, Antigone, is a tragedy written by the Greek poet Sophocles. A common theme among tragedies is that they have a tragic hero, and Antigone is no different. The tragic hero of this poem is Creon, the King of Thebes. Creon is faced with the difficult task of punishing his niece, Antigone. She has broken one of his laws stating that no one is to give proper burial rites to Polyneices, Antigone’s brother, because he tried to overthrow Creon. Against the warning of others, Creon goes on with his plan to essentially sentence Antigone to her death. Creon continually ignores what others counsel him to do because he believes that just because he is king, everything he does is right. It is this thinking that ultimately leads to the death of not only Antigone, but also Creon’s son and wife as well. All tragic heroes suffer from a tragic flaw that leads to their downfall. Creon suffers from two tragic flaws, pride and stubbornness. Both of these flaws lead Creon down a path of destruction that he is unable to return from.

Antigone is loyal to the gods and not to Creon. Antigone states, “Creon is not strong enough to stand in my way.’’(P.32). What she means is that nobody can block her or stand in her way from doing what she has to do for her brother. Some may say that Polyneices was a traitor well he is, that 's the reason why Creon wants Polyneices not buried. She was trying to look out for her family but, her uncle did care about this. Most people would have done the same thing.

In the end, Creon and Antigone met the same faith as death stared into their hearts and took their souls to keep. The glory did not matter in the long run because Creon learned that he cared more for family than the state and Antigone had learned that if she had followed the laws, many lives would have been spared. Aside from their disputes they are reunited again in the underworld, overruled by Hades. The only question is what loyalty the gods honor more. Loyalty to a state and its ruler, or loyalty to a family member and the gods. They both wanted power and glory, but in the end they both suffered tragic

Creon and Antigone both show how pride leads to Destruction; Creon’s pride blinds him to the lack of proper justice he commits against Antigone, Creon has a lot of pride that he would allow Antigone to kill herself before he admit he is wrong, Antigone’s pride has no choice but to be killed because of her

Tragic heroes are apart of almost all plays worldwide weather you know it or not. In the play Antigone. One of the main characters who is the king of the city,Creon, is the tragic hero for three main reason. First of all he is born into nobility, he meets a tragic death, and lastly, Creon is endowed with a tragic flaw.

“ Mistakes made by a foolish mind, cruel mistakes that bring on death.” (1406 to 1407.) In this quote, King Creon of Thebes is acknowledging that he has made tragic mistakes, because he wanted to the laws of his state, that he put in place, instead of preserving the safety of his family, which consequently lead to suffering for many. In the play Antigone, by Sophocles, the character Creon makes decisions based on what he feels is right, and refuses to pay attention to other’s advice. His stubbornness and selfishness prove fatal, and as a consequence of his moral deficiency, he kills an innocent woman, and loses his son in the aftermath. In the play Antigone, by Sophocles, Creon’s deadly stubbornness and selfishness in ignoring the pleas and

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

The tragedy, Antigone by Sophocles is a well developed take on the fight between who is applicable to be the protagonist of a story. In most stories, plays, poems, written works in general from the first literary works discovered surrounded the Hero’s Journey. The tragedy of Antigone is the one play that seems to accept Joseph Campbell’s theory but master the ideals of a protagonist but still battle for the position at the same time. It’s more or less a toss up to put it simply, but there are strong events and decisions within the tragedy that unfolds somewhat who the antagonist and protagonist is. Similar to the characters in Finding Nemo, Nemo and his father, Marlin, are a debatable pair in deciding who is the lead in the film. They, as do Creon and Antigone, follow the Hero’s Journey rather fluently making the end choice in who is the reliable protagonist a hard choice to even think about. The thing that must be considered most is a definition, being protagonist. What a protagonist is, is the leading character or one of the major characters

Possibly their biggest distinction is in their ideals. While discussing the issue of Polyneices and Eteocles deaths, Antigone and Creon take a very different stance. For Creon, he believes that Eteocles was the better man, so he deserves a proper burial, whereas he believes Polyneices is traitor, so he deserves no burial rights. On the other hand, Antigone firmly believes that not granting a dead man a burial is immoral and that no matter the person, everyone deserves a proper burial. After Antigone is confronted by the guard and brought to Creon she explains to him what she knows is morally right, “I did not think anything which you proclaimed strong enough to let a mortal override the gods and their unwritten and unchanging laws” (338). In this quote, she is trying to harn Creon that although he thinks very highly of himself, he will never be able to anything to disrupt the gods and their unwritten laws (being that all men deserve burial). Additionally, the word choice and tone used by the characters also differs. When Creon talks he makes it clear that he thinks of himself quite highly and is convinced that he is above everyone else because of his excessive pride and noble stature. This leads to a tone in his speech that is very obnoxious and off-putting. To the contrary, Antigone regards herself quite low and stands for

You can easily link the events within Antigone to the Stanford prison experiment and the idea that people will assume roles because of their dispositions and/or their situations. This applies especially to Creon because before Oedipus left and his nephews died, he stated that he didn’t want the role of king, only the rights a king had. But as soon as he had to become king, he took to the role very quickly. He became a serious threat. He was quick to anger and couldn’t be reasoned with. When he found out someone had covered the body of Polyneices, he threatened to kill the sentry that had brought the message, even though he did nothing. When Antigone was brought to him, he didn’t hesitate in sentencing her to death. He sentenced his own niece to death for disobeying him. When Haimon tries to change his mind, imploring him to consider how his actions may hurt him since he is supposed to marry Antigone, Creon replies: “Let her find her husband in Hell! Of all the people in this city, only she had contempt for my law and

The scene thorough lines 450 to 540 involve Creon and Antigone in a furious argument. With Creon’s ruthless attitudes he condemns her for her actions however, Antigone seems to be indomitable and fights back. They’re arguing due to the fact that Antigone wants to bury her fallen brother, Polynicies, while Creon has prohibited the burial. In Creon’s mind, everyone from Thebes should hail the estate and obey his orders, while many disagrees with him, only Antigone has the courage to follow the gods rules and honor her family. “Because it wasn’t Zeus who pronounced these things to me.” Proclaimed Antigone after being questioned why wouldn’t she follow his laws.

Antigone’s interactions with Creon highlights his angry, insulting, and unreasonable nature. Antigone reasons with Creon that her actions are justified by the Gods, as they would approve of her burial of Polyneices, her brother. He goes on to show his insulting, and disrespectful nature in his statements expressed in lines 549-550,” ...if she goes her way and

Creon and Antigone clash when the Guard that was accused earlier show’s up with Antigone brings her in, and we can just see how much Antigone shows Creon's personality, that Creon doesn’t care about the gods. ”Creon: And yet you dared to break those very laws to me?” (Line #507) Because of Creon being King, the power went to his head, because of that he thinks that everything, even the gods are below him.”Antigone: Take me and kill me—what more do you want? Creon: Me? Nothing. With that I have everything,” (Line 565-566) That type of thoughts that Creon shows that his own pride is blocking his sight, because of that it's one of his biggest reasons of his downfall as a tragic hero.

Love is a powerful motivation it can even drive you into hating someone, love drives you to do even what you wouldn’t normally do. Creon makes a law that forbids anyone from burying Antigone’s brother. When she finds out she goes against the king and buries her brother. When he is informed about what happened he punishes her. Antigone kills herself and then his son kills himself when he finds out that his love had died. Antigone’s love is so great for her brother that she went against the king and buried him with religious rights. Then Haemon kills himself because Antigone had died and he wanted to be with her. In the end Creon’s wife killed herself because her son had died. Creon is perceived as the tragic hero of the play when he is talking

The play, Antigone is an Ancient Greek play mostly about myth written by Sophocles. There are two main characters in this play which are Antigone and Creon. Antigone is a girl who tries to bury her brother, Polyneices who died during the war and she chooses family instead of the government. Creon, is Antigone’s uncle, and also a King of Thebes who didn’t allow the people to bury Polyneices. He doesn’t like people who disobeys the rules of the government.They both are tragic characters because Antigone kills herself and Creon asks for his death to the gods.It can be argued that the tragic hero is Creon because of his excessive pride and his intense suffering at the end of the play.