How Is Creon A Tragic Hero

How is Creon A Tragic Hero ?

The play Antigone, by playwright Sophocles, contains a arrogant character named Creon who plays the royal king of Thebes and is a ultimate leader. The plot leads to Creon being challenged throughout the play meaning Creon must rebuttal with force because others are questioning his authority. Characters also throughout the play such as, Antigone, Haemon and Ismene do not comply nor help the situation as a whole leading to several unwanted deaths. Therefore, he Plays a role in which he becomes a pure tragic hero, meaning a hero who encounters A downfall that leads to his demise. Whether it is between Antigone refusing to follow the laws in the land of Thebes or Ismene siding with Antigone or as well as, Haemon

his son choosing to go against what Creon plans to do. Or even Creon’s family and people that surround him leading the play to take a turn for the worse bringing a tragic hero out of Creon because of his arrogance, pride and him failing to be rational.
To begin with, Creon begins to form into a tragic hero from the very beginning of the play of Antigone by being self centered and irrational.

For example, Creon argues that there is no way the gods would care about the corpse of Polyneices’ by saying “No one can tolerate what you’ve just said when you claim gods might care about this corpse.” (Sophocles, 329) This quote represents Creon’s fatal flaw which is arrogance because he is being told by the Chorus which can be viewed as Creon’s conscience, that the gods might care about Polyneices’ corpse. However, Creon refuses to believe what he believes to be non-sense. This is again a key representation of how Creon’s traits will get to the best of him and lead to his downfall. Not only that, throughout the play Creon already has self-conflict and Antigone’s actions create even more conflict adding fuel to the fire. This is shown when Antigone speaks to Ismene about burying Polyneices’ corpse by asking Ismene for help by questioning “Will you help these hands take up Polyneices’ corpse and bury it” (Sophocles, 318). This leads to the main conflict because Creon responds to this action as he is being challenged which is unacceptable and especially since it is by a woman. This adds even more fuel to the fire making Creon act even more

irrational.
Moving forward, Creon is going to punish Antigone and he is not satisfied with how this interaction goes. Most importantly it is clear to see his pride get the best of him when he chooses to ignore that he is killing Haemon’s bride. This conversation happens when he states “I have no desire my son should not have an evil wife…no not me Hades is the one who’ll stop the marriage.” (Sophocles, 341) This is a key representation of Creon’s pride getting the best of him he wishes to kill Haemon’s bride because he feels challenged. The worst part of that is Haemon will later in the play confess that if Creon kills Antigone then he will kill himself. Haemon states this by saying “Then she’ll die and in her death will kill someone else” (Sophocles, 355). At this point in the play Creon is still planning to kill Antigone despite Haemon’s threats. This is again showing a fatal flaw of Creon being to prideful and letting it make his irrational decisions leading to his demise.
Creon’s actions due to his irrational mindset and pride is all catching up to Creon.

Especially, when Creon is told by Teiresias who is a blind prophet that if he doesn’t listen to what he recommends then Creon's life as well of Thebes will be in terror. Therefore Teiresias specifically states what would happen by telling Creon “ Then understand this well you will not see the sun race through its cycle many times before you lose a child of your own loins… in your arrogance you’ve moved a living soul into a grave.” (Sophocles, 370) Creon’s actions are alas catching up to him and he realizes it. Creon knows that his fatal flaws are going to lead to his life being ruined but his arrogance still fuels him and Creon is still somewhat hesitant on taking the prophets advice. Therefore, the play advances to Creon's downfall which is his family dying his son Haemon kills himself and his wife Eurydice, kills herself. The messenger would later come to Creon and say, “She stood before the altar, and her heart welcome the knife with her own hand guided” (Sophocles, 376). Creon knew this was his downfall and that his foolishness and failure to listen to Teiresias is what killed his family. At this point in the play Creon is questioning his life as everything falls apart and realizes that if it was not for his life ruining flaws his family could still be

alive.
In Antigone, Creon is a pure tragic hero his pride, arrogance and irrational thinking lead to his downfall as a tragic hero. Creon thought he had everything under control but Creon’s mindset led him to convince himself that the gods would never care about the situation or that killing Haemon’s bride would not trigger unwanted deaths. It took a complete downfall for Creon to change but when he wanted to change it was simply too late showing how Creon is a true if not definition of a tragic hero.

Works Cited
DENNING, STEPHEN. “Antigone.” SPRINGBOARD, TAYLOR & FRANCIS, 2015, pp. 316–377.