Who Is Creon A Villain

Creon is the main antagonist in the play Antigone and is an absolute tyrant. Creon's hubris is what ultimately leads to being his downfall; Creon’s hamartia. In the play Antigone, Creon is a powerful, wrinkled, Man who is suffering the burdens of ruling. He has surrendered himself to the throne. Creon is a very practical man who has a very logical and literal mindset and even tells Antigone that his only interest is in political subjects and social order. Tragic irony is present in the play Antigone, as Creon is a very simplistic man who has who has positive intentions that ultimately leads to a very negative outcome resulting in tragic suffering. This being said, I do believe that Creon is the main antagonist of the story but I do not believe that he is a villain. Creon was the lawmaker and ordered that Eteocles was to be given a proper burial. However, if somebody were to bury Polyneices they would be sentenced to execution by stoning. Creon believed that Polyneices was a traitor for battling Eteocles. Antigone defies the law, and buries Polyneices (Polyneices is Antigone's brother). When Antigone is caught for the crime that she has committed, Creon has no choice but to execute her. Antigone was banished to a dungeon where she would inevitably die from starvation; however,

Antigone kills herself before Creon's moment of anagnorisis and peripeteia.
Creon’s hubris changes Creon's state by giving him a very literal mindset that disables his ability to see the familial bond between Antigone to her brother Polyneices which ties them together; This makes Creon arrogant. Creon favors the more rational laws of man over those of the gods. This passage is Creon thinking amongst himself of his actions in Antigone “Is it not arrant folly to pretend That god would have a thought for this dead man? Did they forsooth award him special grace, And as some benefactor bury him, Who came to fire their hallowed sanctuaries, To sack their shrines, to desolate their land, And scout their ordinances? Or perchance The gods bestow their favors on the bad. No! no! I have long noted malcontents Who wagged their heads and kicked against the yoke, Misliking these my orders, and my rule. 'Tis they, I warrant, who suborned my guards By bribes. Of evils current upon earth The worst is money. Money 'tis that sacks Cities, and drives men forth from hearth and home; Warps and seduces native innocence, And breeds a habit of dishonesty. … For by dishonesty the few may thrive, The many come to ruin and disgrace.” (Antigone Pg 11). The passage shows characterization in Creon by showing his arrogance and that he is a hubris.
Creon’s arrogance and fatal flaw, hubris, affects his ability to be a leader by making him his stubborn and his pride so great, that he cannot acknowledge that he would ever be wrong.

Creon says to Antigone when they were arguing over the burial of Polyneices “Whatever you say, you will not change my will.” (Antigone, scene 5) Which shows Creon completely shutting out the chance that he is possibly incorrect. Creon’s self-righteousness exemplifies to the reader his arrogance in Antigone to such an extent to where he says “The state is King!” (Antigone, Scene 3) Saying that he even thinks he's better than the gods. The gods do not like this which leads to Creon’s hubris to be his

downfall.
Based on Creon’s specific fatal flaw in the play Antigone, which is his arrogance and hubris, the play is saying that a leader should not be completely full of themselves to the point of stubbornness and arrogance; that a leader should be confident in his actions but not allow the power of the throne consume him. Although Creon finally realizes that his hubris has not let him effectively deal with his conflicts, his hyper-logical thinking and arrogance consumed him so that he was blind to Antigone's connection to Polyneices and Haimon's love for Antigone. This shows that a leader should not only think analytically and logistically but also to think of others and their emotions. Another Quality that the play may say a leader would need is to not see yourself as better than the Gods for it is Teiresias's prophecy that is the peripeteia and Creon recognizes or has his anagnorisis that his hubris was what has brought him his downfall all along.