The Importance Of Pride In Antigone By Sophocles

Where There Is Pride There Is Pain “ All men make mistakes… But when they do, they’re no longer foolish… If they try to fix the evil into which they’ve fallen… Men who put their stubbornness on show invite accusations.” (lines 1140-1147) Antigone’s words, actions, and ideas, contrast with Creon’s character to the point of these two characters having conflicting motivations.

We are only women, We cannot fight with men Antigone!” (Prologue Lines 45-47). While Ismene would gladly obey the laws set forth by her Uncle, Antigone would rather die than let her brother’s body be desecrated. She refused to give up no matter the obstacle in her way. At the end of her crusade, Antigone is condemned to be buried alive in a tomb by Creon.

In the past prideful rulers have caused more destruction and downfall than anything. Having pride may be good, but having to much can be the downfall of man. In the play Antigone, King Creon being overyly prideful ultimately leads to the death of himself emotionally. Creon shows a couple of occasions when he has way to much pride; when Antigone and he sister are condemned to death for trying to give burial rights to their brother, but Creon has them arrested and does not care even though he is related to them.

Antigone’s actions are motivated by her allegiance to her family, moral conscience, and religion amid Creon’s political injustice and tyranny. Antigone’s actions motivate her to demand Ismene to prove whether she is “a true sister or a traitor to your family” (26-27). Antigone maintains loyalty to her brother despite his actions which threatened Thebes. Her inability to bear the thought of her brother’s corpse being picked apart by animals and not being honored with proper funeral rites forces her to act. Antigone’s fierce allegiance to her family is laid bare as she is willing to sacrifice her life to honor her brother and defy the law in an act that she believes is morally just.

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.

In the short story titled “Antigone,” the author portrays Creon as a tragic hero by displaying flaws in Creon's character shown throughout the story. Creon’s character contains many flaws which lead to many problems. His decisions end up deciding the fates of his son, his wife, and Antigone. Creon finally realizes that what he has done is sinful to the gods. He has put his own pride over the appreciation of the gods.

Antigone also falls victim to the excessive force and jaded complexity of her uncle, when he prioritizes patriarchal standards and his law over her moral act of goodness and makes it known that, “while I’m alive, no woman is going to lord it over me” (590). All the trouble Creon put his family through just to save face and show his dominance ends up destroying what was left of his family just to avoid, “never be rated inferior to a woman, never”

From world wars to present day national elections, pride can always be connected to many appalling, life-changing issues. Pride has always either been negative or positive, and it has been around forever. In the epic play Antigone, Sophocles demonstrates how Creon’s hubris allows for the downfall of himself and the killing of his family. Creon’s fatal flaw is his hubris. Creon not only loses his family, he also loses the trust of his people.

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

In the scene in which Creon will not allow her brother to be buried. This goes against her personal beliefs she confronts Creon when she says “if I had allowed my own mothers son to rot, an unburied corpse that would have been an agony.” Creon wouldn’t allow Antigone brother to be buried even tho Antigone felt it was the right thing to do. Antigone is talking to Ismene about burying her brother but Ismene tells her to keep the idea a secret but Antigone disagrees and says “But I know I’ll please the ones I’m duty bound to please.

“Humble yourself or life will do it for you,” is a common quote used by many. This idea of being humble to avoid consequences applies well to the book Antigone by Sophocles. It shows how if one has too much pride, they will be humbled in one way or another. In Antigone, Creon had tunnel vision, not listening to anyone. His fatal flaw was hubris, ultimately leading to the downfall of him.

Fate has brought all my pride to a thought of dust”(Sophocles 1.5 142-146). Creon’s destruction resulted because of his misdeeds in having too much pride. His pride and his personal instability were the worst combination of possible qualities he could have. Creon’s past sins have built up and eventually burst and gave this man the worst punishment of all the characters in the play. In Antigone by Sophocles, Creon displayed many failing qualities as a king; most notably having displayed a giant ego by not accepting help from others, which warns the audience of the dangers

In Sophocles` play, Antigone, he shows a story of a crazed man who lets pride takes over his actions causing the deaths of his loved ones. This essay will discuss Haimon, King Creon`s son, through statements that Sophocles himself wrote and inferences of his perspective. During the story Haimon does major actions such as; plea for his fiancée, commits suicide and even cast death upon King Creon. I believe that Haimon plead for Antigone`s life for more than one reason. He pleads for her because she was his fiancée and also because he heard the rumors the citizens passed around about King Creon.

She dares to challenge the arrogant tyrant Creon by expressing her points bravely and furiously, trying to warn him that women do not always have the obligation to do what men command; she dares to protest the balance between duty and law, “…for it was not Zeus made such a law; such is not the Justice of the gods.” (Antigone), making her decisions in an equitable way and promise to find the real justice so as to give respect to her brother, Polyneices’ burial. Even though in the end Creon tries to give Antigone a lesson by putting her to prison, Antigone did not escape, for she understood that her action and pride would bring about these consequences, and she did not regret for doing this. In addition, we can also observe women power by seeing Creon’s words and behaviors. Creon’s hubris as a men affects how he thinks about women, he considered women as secondary creature.

Creon throughout the whole play shows a discrimination toward women, in the end he ends up undergoing a terrible downfall. In the play, Antigone is the protagonist who most of the sexism is appointed toward. Creon shows a lot of feminism toward Antigone not only because of her criminal action but also that the fact that she is a female. Creon goes on to send Antigone to a cell deep in the middle of the woods because she went against his law. The fact that she was a female and went against a man’s power makes it seem worse than it actually has to be, all she did was pay her respect to her brother because no one would.