The Tragic Criteria Present in Antigone by Sophocles

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A tragic story has its own occur of events. The main factors that always end a tragedy is through conspiracies, love, or hatred. In the story Antigone written by Sophocles, it demonstrates a tragedy filled with consequences to the characters. Antigone shows similarities to Aristotle’s paradigm because of the plot, characterization, and actions that were pursued throughout this story. In Aristotle’s Poetics, he puts his view of how a tragedy should be portrayed to make the concept of it more understandable towards the audience. Through the usages of Aristotle’s criteria it will help analyze topics that demonstrates the views of Aristotle.

One criteria that associates with Aristotle’s paradigm is that a character’s thought is what leads to their actions and it may end to be successful or a failure. For example, when Anitgone’s brothers fought in battle against each other, they knew that one of them would have to die. They were willing to lose everything to get what they wanted. As one fought to defend their country, the other one wanted to take it over. This example proves to be part of Aristotle’s paradigm because the two brother’s thoughts and greed got ahead of them. Both of them made sure to rule their country together, but when Eteocles enjoyed taking the role of a king, he did not want to give it up. There could only be one king and both of them wanted to rule their country. The only way for Polyneices to get the throne away from his brother was to kill him and become the new king. He gathered troops and began his march towards conquering the throne. In the end, their greed was what caused them to go against each other and it ended both of their lives. Another example of this criteria is King Creon’s thought of killing Anti...

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...e of Aristotle’s criteria. Many tragedies contain a conspiracy, love, or hatred because these are some of the main factors that leads to a tragedy. In Antigone, all three of these factors have been used to show the creativity and consequences of how each factor can lead to a tragic end. Aristotle’s view of a good tragedy should be like Antigone because most of his main criteria points are identified in this story. Three of Aristotle’s criteria chosen along with examples relating to Antigone’s plot, characterization, and action. The plot in this story indicates a tragedy due to the fault of a strict king. The characters in the story have their own opinions, which leads to their consequences. These character’s actions are what unravels the story to an end. These three themes are included in Aristotle’s Poetic and they illustrate the standards of a good tragic story.

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