Creon Tragic Hero In The Great Gatsby

A tragic hero is the essential constituent part in every tragedy, supporting the entire plot with his or her miserable fate. Thinking about this term in play and book, in Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, the protagonist Danish Prince Hamlet is the tragic hero due to his irresolution and his skepticism, leading to his death; in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book The Great Gatsby, because of the conflicting desire of earning money and winning love of Daisy, Gatsby keeps living in the worry that his lies may be revealed. Specifically, Creon, the tragic hero in Antigone written by Sophocles, causes the misfortune and ruins others’ lives because of his stubbornness and arrogance.
First of all, Creon’s hubris is showed in his attempt to establish a law that announces

Eteocles will receive a formal burial and be buried as a hero but not to bury Polynices with proper ritual. At the open of the play, Antigone tells her sister Ismene what Creon does to their brothers’ death with extreme rage, “hasn’t Creon graced one with all the rites, disgraced the other? Eteocles…has been given full military honors…goes with glory down among the dead. But the body of Polynices…forbids anyone to bury him, even mourn him”(27-34). According to the religion of Ancient Greek, a dead body needs to receive a necessary rite and a proper burial in order to be accepted by the afterlife or heaven.

Antigone’s words indicate that Creon “[graces Eteocles’s body] with all the

rites [and] military honors” because Eteocles is on his side in the war. On the contrary, Creon breaks the natural law and the Ancient Greek religion, forbidding his citizens to “bury [Polynices], even mourn him”. In Greek, people must obey the rules of their religion, and they don’t have any rights and power to violate the orders, but Creon ignores the law of nature; he doesn’t accept and admit any power higher than that of himself. Creon’s tyranny and monarchism make up the tragic flaws in his personality, which leads the entire play to a sorrowful ending; also, his neglect and disdain toward the Greek religion exacerbate the melancholy atmosphere of the play.
What’s more, obstinacy is another crucial factor that makes Creon a tragic hero.

Knowing that Antigone is his son Haemon’s fiancé, Creon still persists to in executing Antigone as traitor. When Creon quarrels with his son, in his great rage, he commands the sentry to kill Antigone right away, “Take her away, quickly! Wall her up in the tomb, you have your orders. Abandon her there, alone”(971-973). This is too much for Haemon to take. Haemon, as the fiancé of Antigone and a righteous person, tries his best to persuade his father to reconsider his order; however, Haemon fails to do so due to Creon’s stubbornness and disorder. Besides Haemon, Tiresias also warns and persuades Creon not to kill Antigone, “take these things to heart, my son, I warn you. All men make mistakes, it is only human. But once the wrong is done, a man
can turn his back on folly, misfortune too, if he tries to make amends, however low he's fallen, and stops his bullnecked ways. Stubbornness
brands you for stupidity—pride is a crime”(1131-1137).
But Creon disregards Tiresias’s warning, and still insists his decision on killing Antigone. Finally, his stubbornness leads his family to the doom of

death.
In a word, Creon is the tragic hero, which is portrayed in Sophocles’s play Antigone. His hamartia consists of excessive pride and obstinacy taking over the logical and rational part on his mind; that also causes him to violate the natural law and humanity. Creon’s flaw in his personality results to the downfall of his own life, also the death of Antigone and loss of his family. Therefore, Creon is the tragic hero in Antigone.