Creon's Presentation Of Greek Tragedies

Aristotle extensively explored Greek tragedies and came down to the realization that, “Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude” (Section 1, Part VI, Poetics). Tragedy, like all other types of poetry, is a mimesis (imitation) that still contains a serious purpose. Aristotle tended to write things as they could be rather than how they actually are, which is greatly portrayed in Sophocles’ rendition of the Oedipus Plays. The whole idea behind a tragedy is to produce a “catharsis” out of the audience. There are six steps to be able to produce a catharsis, those being: plot, character, diction, thought, spectacle (scenic effect), and song. It is believed by Aristotle that there are four steps

Creon fits the image of the hero with the “tragic flaw” because of the difficult choices that he was forced to make, along with the obsession of power that he obtained. Furthermore, he was caught up in himself being above all others, but in reality, he was the same as everyone else. Creon was the type of person who refused to listen to anyone other than himself and thought himself to always be correct and this is mainly shown in Sophocles’ Antigone. His son, Haemon even said to him, “So I beg you Father, don’t entrench yourself in your opinion as if everyone else was wrong” (Sophocles, 222). He believed that he stood above all gods and he did not care who he hurt in the process of his life. Eventually, everyone that was left in Creon’s family dies, and he was the only one left, and once he realized that, he wished for death, “When everything I touch is lost and death has leapt upon my life?” (Sophocles, 252). Consequently, his wish for death made the audience have pity for him since he was left with nothing, hence the production of a

First, Creon was nobly born since he was the brother of Oedipus’ wife, who was queen of Thebes. Second, his fall from grace was that he was no longer respected as king when he decided that Polyneices, Oedipus’ son would not be allowed to have a proper burial after he died. As stated in Sophocles’ Antigone, “I’ve sent the edict out that none shall bury him or even mourn. He must be left all ghastly where he fell, a corpse for dogs to maul and vultures pick his bones” (Sophocles, 199). Third, his tragic flaw was his hubris or his overweening pride. Then his two errors in judgment were his decision to kill Antigone since she was trying to bury her brother, and his belief that he was superior to all women. “Let us say that Death is going to come between” (Sophocles, 217). His personal vengeance got involved with his duties as king, which caused him to make the mistake of letting Antigone die. Even though his son, Haemon told him that the people of Thebes were siding with Antigone, he willingly punished Antigone because she was a woman. “This boy is hopelessly on the woman’s side” (Sophocles, 224). He believed that his son was siding with Antigone, because he would not listen to Haemon since he hated women so much. Lastly, Creon realized his fall and was enlightened when he stated, “I know. You point the horns of my dilemma. It’s hard