Hubris In Creon

The saying “Pride goes before a fall” best describes the character of Creon, he is very proud and it’s his pride that causes his downfall. Hubris can be defined as overweening pride or presumption, excessive arrogance and self-confidence. It’s recognized as a common flaw (hamartia) in human character in ancient Greek tragedy. Creon is the center character in the play “Antigone”, and he suffers from this flaw. He is the tragic hero blinded by his hubris and ego. He later fails to acknowledge he was wrong early enough to repair his evil, he realizes that only at the end of the play.

The play Antigone can be defined as both part of a Greek tragedy and a trilogy, due to its relation to Oedipus and Oedipus at Colons, all written by Sophocles. Sophocles was a Greek writer who was very concerned with human sufferings and placed them in his plays. The play commences after both Antigone’s brothers Eteocles and Polyneices are dead after they both kill themselves during a fight. Antigone and Ismene are left as the two surviving daughters of Oedipus who is also dead.

She disobeys Creon knowing fully as the announcement was made publicly but still chooses to give her brother the burial she knows he deserves. One of the reason being that she is interested in family and religion valuing them deeply and making them come first in her life. It seems she values burying her brother more than marrying her fiancé Haemon, who is Creon’s youngest son. “I could have had another husband and by him other sons, if one were lost; But, father and mother lost, where would I get another brother?”(Sophocles 150) The other reason being Greeks to have a very eschatological view, they believe all the souls of mankind go to hades and later reincarnate. Their view on the afterlife is cyclical. In order to get to hades you had to have a proper burial that is why Antigone is concerned with her brother having a proper