Antigone Character Analysis Essay

1093 Words3 Pages

Sushma Karki
P
English 1302
October 10, 2017
Antigone
“Antigone” is a great Greek tragedy by Sophocles. The story is about a young woman who has brother by breaking king’s decree, and now she is punished for obeying God’s law. In the classic model of dramatic structure, two characters move the action of the play from introduction to climax to resolution with their conflict. One of these characters is the protagonist, and the other is the antagonist. The protagonist is a “good guy” and the antagonist is the “bad guy”. In Sophocles’ play Antigone , the lines between protagonist and antagonist are blurred. In the Greek tradition , the title character is the protagonist, but in this play the supposed antagonist, Creon also displays characteristics of protagonist.
Creon is portrayed as a strict leader who believes in adherence to his laws over those of the gods. He is not a fan of extenuating circumstances, either. His actions can only follow from those of Antigone, so he cannot be the traditional protagonist like
She is the protagonist in the sense that she incites the conflict, but that is the only obvious characteristic she possesses. If it is possible for a Greek tragedy to have two protagonists, Antigone seems to do it. Antigone is the first protagonist. The plot begins with her burial of her brother, so she engages the conflict against Creon. She is stubborn and somewhat ambiguous in her family values – she will risk death in order to bury her traitorous brother, but she curses her timid sister – so she is far from perfect, but she is a sympathetic character. She is a spokesman for feminism (make that spokeswoman) and democracy ("Lucky tyrants – the perquisites of power! / Ruthless power to do and say whatever pleases them", so we see her as the "good guy," that prestigious title usually reserved for the

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