In the play Antigone, created by Sophocles Antigone is a foil to Creon because their personalities contrast. This makes Creon a Tragic Hero because he thinks that he is a god but in reality he is a mortal upsetting the god's and he will eventually meet his demise. At the start of the play the reader is introduced to a character named Creon, who is the king of Thebes, the previous king, Eteocles, was killed by his brother Polyneices. There is a law arranged by Creon, so nobody could bury the body of Polyneices but Antigone, the sister of both Eteocles and Polyneices, wants to bury her brother and is willing to risk her life to bury him. She eventually gets caught and is sentenced to death by Creon.
The character Antigone has been in conflict against Creon ever since he became the king of Thebes. Antigone would never let Creon's law about burying the body of Polyneices override her moral beliefs and her beliefs in the gods. “Zeus did not announce those laws to me, And justice
…show more content…
living with the god's below to send no such laws for men. I did not think anything which you proclaimed strong enough to let a mortal override the gods and their unwritten and unchanged laws (508-513).” This quote symbolizes that the laws Creon has set are not laws that the gods would allow. Antigone will not let mortals override the gods and their laws. Ever since Creon became king Antigone has time and time again challenged his rule and believes that he is doing the wrong action involving the bodies of her brothers. Creon’s Pride is something that has interfered with the way he rules and his pride has made him irrational. King Creon is depicted as a character that lets pride dictate his life. He believes that he is a god and that he can set laws for everyone to follow in the city of Thebes. This depicts him as a tragic hero in result of his pride and how it interferes with the gods. The character Antigone emphasizes the pride in Creon because she defied his law and maintains to challenge Creon's rule. She believes that Creon is someone who thinks immensely of himself and thinks he is a god when he truly is a mortal with a noble stature. “For Creon this matter’s really serious. Anyone who acts against the order will be stoned to death before the city (42 - 44).” This quote explains what the punishment for burying Polyneices is and how Creon believes he can set laws against the will of the gods. When Creon Catches Antigone, he traps her in a cave and gives her a rope and leaves her to decide how she wants to die. Creon's son Haemon goes to the cave to attempt to free her, but it is already too late and Antigone chooses to hang herself. When Haemon finds out that Creon Sentenced her to perish like this Haemon takes his own life and that's when Creon realized that his choices lead to his downfall.
When Creon’s wife, Eurydice, finds out that her son is dead she kills herself. Creon's downfall started when Antigone choose to hang herself. “ You will not see the sun race through its cycle many times before you lose a child of your own loins, a corpse in payment for these corpses. You’ve thrown down to those below someone from up above-in your arrogance you’ve moved a living soul into a grave, leaving here a body owned by the gods below- unburied, dispossessed, unsanctified. That's no concern of yours or gods above. In this you violate the ones below. And so destroying avengers wait for you, Furies of Hades and the gods, Who’ll see you caught up in this very wickedness (1194-1205).” This quote explains that in view of the unnecessary death of Antigone he will meet his demise. This man predicts that he would lose his
son. Antigone Shows that Creon would eventually meet his demise and she brings out the tragic hero in Creon. She defied his law and did what no one else dared to do being that she believed the god’s laws were greater than his laws. Creon is a tragic hero due to his choices corrupting him and make him realize his unjust acts. The play Antigone is a perfect example of a tragic hero since Creon made choices that were unnecessary and undeserved thus he was forced to pay the price.
In Sophocles' Greek tragedy, Antigone, two characters undergo character changes. During the play the audience sees these two characters' attitudes change from close-minded to open-minded. It is their close-minded, stubborn attitudes, which lead to their decline in the play, and ultimately to a series of deaths. In the beginning Antigone is a close minded character who later becomes open minded. After the death of her brothers, Eteocles and Polyneices, Creon becomes the ruler of Thebes. He decides that Eteocles will receive a funeral with military honors because he fought for his country. However, Polyneices, who broke his exile to " spill the blood of his father and sell his own people into slavery", will have no burial. Antigone disagrees with Creon's unjust actions and says, " Creon is not strong enough to stand in my way." She vows to bury her brother so that his soul may gain the peace of the underworld. Antigone is torn between the law placed against burying her brother and her own thoughts of doing what she feels should be done for her family. Her intent is simply to give her brother, Polyneices, a proper burial so that she will follow "the laws of the gods." Antigone knows that she is in danger of being killed for her actions and she says, "I say that this crime is holy: I shall lie down with him in death, and I shall be as dear to him as he to me." Her own laws, or morals, drive her to break Creon's law placed against Polyneices burial. Even after she realizes that she will have to bury Polyneices without the help of her sister, Ismene, she says: Go away, Ismene: I shall be hating you soon, and the dead will too, For your words are hateful. Leave me my foolish plan: I am not afraid of the danger; if it means death, It will not be the worst of deaths-death without honor. Here Ismene is trying to reason with Antigone by saying that she cannot disobey the law because of the consequences. Antigone is close-minded when she immediately tells her to go away and refuses to listen to her. Later in the play, Antigone is sorrowful for her actions and the consequences yet she is not regretful for her crime. She says her crime is just, yet she does regret being forced to commit it.
Creon is in a position of great power, influence and responsibility. The extent of his power is quite clear when he sentenced Antigone to death for disobeying his order. Antigone's reasons for burying her brother were simply the fact that she was demonstrating her love, honor, and loyalty to her family. However, the reason Creon is furious is that he feels insulted that Antigone openly and publicly disobeyed him. He was also inflamed that she was his niece and his son Haemon fiancé. It is known that in ancient times when a man's authority is threatened, especially by a woman, his ego is irreparably damaged.
In Sophocles’s play, Antigone, Thebes is just starting to settle down after a power struggle between two brothers led to one of them, Polyneices, waging war on the city-state to reclaim power, and eventually the two brothers’ deaths. Because of his act of treason against Thebes, Polyneices is denied rights to a burial, a very important part of Greek religion. His sister Antigone buries him despite the law, and is condemned to death by Creon, the king. Creon strives to bring a peaceful end to chaotic times. Although Creon claims the king must always be obeyed to avoid anarchy and chaos, Sophocles disagrees completely by showing what can happen when the king is wrong.
From the Greek point of view, both Creon's and Antigone's positions are flawed, because both oversimplify ethical life by recognizing only one kind of good or duty. By oversimplifying, each ignores the fact that a conflict exists at all, or that deliberation is necessary. Moreover, both Creon and Antigone display the dangerous flaw of pride in the way they justify and carry out their decisions. Antigone admits right from the beginning that she wants to carry out the burial because the action is glorious. Antigone has a savage spirit; she has spent most of her life burying her family members.
Of the tragic figures in Antigone, Creon is the most obviously evil because his motives are self-serving and his fate the worst. As the play begins, we learn that Antigone has defied Creon's royal decree by performing sacred burial rites for her exiled brother, Polyneices. Polyneices has been declared an enemy of the state by Creon. The sentence for anyone attempting to bury him is death by stoning.
Antigone, as a character, is extremely strong-willed and loyal to her faith. Creon is similarly loyal, but rather to his homeland, the city of Thebes, instead of the gods. Both characters are dedicated to a fault, a certain stubbornness that effectively blinds them from the repercussions of their actions. Preceding the story, Antigone has been left to deal with the burden of her parents’ and both her brothers’ deaths. Merely a young child, intense grief is to be expected; however, Antigone’s emotional state is portrayed as frivolous when it leads her to directly disobey Creon’s orders. She buries her brother Polynices because of her obedience to family and to the gods, claiming to follow “the gods’ unfailing, unwritten laws” (Sophocles 456-457). CONTINUE
Antigone’s strength allows her to defend her brother’s honor against Creon, who wants to make a statement about traitors. However, both Antigone and King Creon commit faults while trying to protect the things they love. Antigone should not have died for her beliefs as it puts her loved ones and community in danger, and Creon should not have forbidden the burial of Polyneices as it angers the Gods and causes him great suffering in the end.
In Antigone, Sophocles illustrates Antigone to rise above her gender stereotype and do what is forbidden. Antigone is expected to sit in her room and wait for a man to tell her what move to make next throughout her life. After her brothers battle to the death, one is buried and one is not. Antigone does not stand for this at all and expects both of her brothers to be buried. When she is forbidden to leave her room and bury her brother, she does not agree. Antigone sneaks out of her room during the night to bury her brother. The next morning, Creon, who is the King of Thebes,
When Creon decided to forbid the burial of Polynices, as he believed Polynices was a traitor to Thebes, Antigone was outraged. This decision, viewed through the eyes of Creon, was just and fair; on the other hand, Antigone viewed his decision as cruel and selfish, which resulted into a major conflict between these two characters. When Antigone disobeyed his proclamation, Creon became infuriated towards this rebellious act. Those small events within the play expressed Creon as a ruler doing what he believes is right; on the other hand, Antigone’s rebellion expressed otherwise. Antigone was soon shown to cause an evil spark within Creon.
In the play Creon goes against the Gods by making it illegal to bury Polyneices, Antigone’s brother because he is deemed a traitor. The burying of a dead body is seen as a necessity by all of Greece as it is an unspoken law of the Gods. Antigone goes to bury her brother so his afterlife will be better. She does it in spite of the law that Creon has made. “It is the dead, not the living, who make the longest demands” (192) She tries to explain to her sister, Ismene, that they must bury Polyneices, but even that close relationship has trouble because of the law. Ismene is unwilling to suffer the consequences of the law, to save her brother’s soul “Forgive me but I am helpless: I must yield to those in authority” (192) Even the two sisters who have just lost both of their brothers have different views on the matter. One will not stray from the law and what is deemed right by their king, while the other will accept any punishment, even death just to do what she believes is right.
In the story of Antigone, Oedipus has already died, his two sons. Polyneices and Eteocles, left to contend for the throne of Thebes. In their contention for the throne, the two brothers slay one another, leaving Creon once again to be the acting regent of Thebes. With this power, Creon declares that Polyneices must be left to rot on the battlefield, the highest disgrace to any Greek. Antigone, daughter of Oedipus, is left torn between state of family, and in the end, chooses family over state. Disregarding Creon 's edict with grave danger to herself, Antigone ventures to bury the body of Polyneices, and thus begins her adventure. Antigone is truly a tragic hero, marked by her station as son of Oedipus, and her proud and perhaps arrogant
Antigone is much more controversial than Creon is. After Ismene tells Antigone that she will not help her bury their brother and reminds her that doing so is against the law, Antigone tells Ismene to “Tell [that I am burying Polynices], tell it! You’ll cross me worse, by far, if you keep silence—Not publish it to all.”
Creon the noble King of Thebes will do anything to protect the people of his Kingdom, and the power the Greek Gods have given him. Creon goes to the furthest extent of imprisoning and killing his niece, Antigone, for the disobeyment of a Thebes law. This enormous power hungry king may be the cause to his own downfall. “Antigone”, author Sophocles, is a conflicting family battle of the morally right and wrong. Antigone is the sister of Ismene, Eteocles and Polyneices. Polyneices and Eteocles died fighting each other, after their deaths occurred Creon thought Eteocles deserved an honorable burial, however Polyneices was going to be left in the middle of Thebes to rot and be eaten by birds because he attempted treason against
The true tragic hero of the play Antigone, by Sophocles, is Antigone’s uncle Creon, the king of Thebes. During a battle over the throne of Thebes, the sons of Oedipus, Eteocles and Polyneices, kill each other in battle. Creon give Eteocles a proper burial, but forbids anyone from burying Polyneices’. However, his niece Antigone defies his orders and tries to bury her brother, which leads to a chain of reactions.
Creon is the tragic hero in Antigone for many reasons. His stubbornness by not wanting to be proven wrong because of his pride is one of the many reasons Creon is the tragic character. Creon believes it is okay to give Eteocles a proper burial because he died, as a man should, fight for his country. On the other hand, Creon treats Polyneices’ death in a distasteful, uncaring manner. Creon believed Polyneices’ should not receive a proper burial because Polyneices’ broke his exile to come back with fire and sword against his native city and the shrines of his father’s gods, whose idea was to split his blood and sell his own people into slavery. Creon also said that anyone that touches Polyneices’ or says the least prayer for him would be stoned to death. The Choragus attempted to inform Creon that he made a mistake by saying nobody can bury Polyneices, but it is to no avail. When Creon finds out someone has buried Polyneices, he assumes it is the men, the anarchists, that buried him because they want money, but Antigone is really the one that buries Polyneices. When the people of Thebes tried to tell Creon Antigone did the right thing, he did not want to listen to them. Creon believed that if he made an ex...