Similarities Between Creon And Antigone

Personally I partially agree with Hegel a German philosopher’s view that Antigone is a battle between right and right. Antigone is fighting to be able to properly bury her brother, and Creon is trying to make sure traitors like Polynices are not rewarded for their behaviour. Both Creon and Antigone’s arguments come from justified ideas. With Antigone’s parents both “lost in the halls of Death” (1003), she could never have another brother and she felt it was necessary to be able to mourn one of her only brothers and to “honour [him]” (993) like she had the rest of her family. Her choice is justified if the fact that she believes that “Death longs for the same rites for all”; as well she followed the ultimate will of the Gods who are extremely

important at this time and believe that all people deserve to be honoured after death. Although Creon goes about conveying it the wrong way, has a justified argument in saying Polynices should not be honoured after death. He believes that he is taking care of his city because Polynices had been fighting against his city and to discourage such acts he withholds burial rights from a traitor. Antigone even admits that she would “never have taken this ordeal upon [herself]” (998) had it been a child or a husband because; Creon had forbid the burial and “the city is the king’s—that’s the law!” (825).

While Ismene and Antigone are both very different they both reflect views of women in society. Ismene believe it the total control of the law and believes that women have a place in society and that women are “not born to contend with men” (75). She is consumed with following the rules that she simply cannot fathom how her sister could bury Polynices “when a law forbids the city” (54) from doing so. She is the perfect obedient women that she is expected to be and believes that she “must obey the ones who stand in power” (80). Antigone of the other hand is “in love with impossibility” (104), stubborn, and “rash” (96). Antigone is “not ashamed for a moment” (73) in her choice to break the law to honour her ”own flesh and blood” (74). Antigone is not typical in this society as seen in ow Creon is in such disbelief that a woman would go against his orders. Before he knows who buried Polynices he continually refers to the perpetrator as he and him, and when he sees Antigone as a prisoner he immediately jumps to the conclusion that she has been taken “in some act of mad defiance” (424) and not that she has been arrested for burying her brother.

Using Aristotle’s rules for tragedy I believe that Creon is the true tragic hero of this play.

The character of Creon matches up to the tragic character elements; in some ways Creon is good, he is a fair ruler, he spares Ismene’s life, and he ended up seeing error in his ways and tried to do the right thing. Creon also acts appropriately in the time for his gender and rank. His misogony, is very common among men in this time and as a male king his view that “no woman is going to lord… over [him]” (594) is also very understandable. However Antigone is rebellious and fights against how she is told to live her life, therefore her character does not follow Aristotle’s rules of tragedy. Furthermore although Creon’s views do change within the play, the changes are believable because the good comes from a place that has already been seen in him. This contrasts the way that Antigone—after remaining strong and stubborn the whole play—crumbles when she faces death and ends up killing herself. Finally Creon is the true tragic hero because he is the person who is hurt the most in this play. Although Antigone Is hurt in this play, she dies, effectively ridding herself of that pain. Creon on the other hand, unconsciously makes decisions leading to the death of his son and his wife and is left with “the guilt of all their deaths” upon him. Although clearly both Creon and Antigone’s characters have the fall associated with a tragic hero, Creon is the true tragic hero of Sophocles’

Antigone.