...Who is the tragic hero of Antigone? Aristotle defines a tragic hero as one with a fatal flaw that leads to a reversal of fortune, or peripeteia. This fatal flaw is often Hubris, which is excessive pride. Creon fits all these roles, therefore he should be labelled as the tragic hero of Antigone. Creon also faces anagnorisis, in which the tragic hero realizes the situation they're in and is often followed by regret. Not only that, but Creon's fatal flaw, excessive pride, impacts the story more than Antigone did. As previously stated, Creon's flaw is his excessive pride and arrogance. In the story of Antigone, Creon gives Antigone's brother, Eteocles, a proper burial, but refuses to bury Polynices for betraying their city and leaves him out to rot. Antigone was appalled by this and for the sake of family and love went against Creon's wishes and buried Polynices. Antigone is eventually caught doing so and is sent to Creon. Creon, being arrogant as always, insists on Antigone being killed for her actions....
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...The Tragic Character of Antigone In any type of literature, there will always be a hero who experiences the stages of a tragic hero and fall into their depths of misery. In the play of “Antigone,” Creon and Antigone or two of the two tragic characters mentioned in the play met similar tragic fates and endings. Both of the characters also similar caused their own downfall and tragic endings by their ignorance (harmania), flaw (hubris), and mistakes earlier in the story. But as any tragic hero, Antigone did meet her tragic fate as any character would, she isn’t the tragic character in “Antigone”. Although she met a similar fate she’s just another main character to help push Creon into becoming a tragic hero. One of Creon’s flaw that led him...
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...The Tragic Hero Creon A tragedy is an imitation of a serious action which will arouse pity and fear in the viewer and a tragic hero is a character that meets their downfall because of a weakness or error in judgment. Greek drama always includes a tragic hero or heroine who has a tragic or fatal flaw. This is meant to create compassion for the character from the audience, but also make the audience fear the character and their decisions. For example, in Sophocles’ Antigone there are two characters who might be considered a tragic hero. Creon is the tragic hero in Antigone because of his arrogance, his willingness to accept his faults, and what his faults teach the audience. Creon’s hubris is what makes him the perfect tragic hero of Antigone....
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...In Antigone, the protagonist Creon is a tragic hero who struggles with internal dilemmas. The fatal decisions that set him down a tragic path are rooted in his inner conflict. Creon must discern between the importance of civil law and divine law, and this tension created illuminates the central idea that defying the Gods ends in detriment. The conflicting force of civil law is most appealing to Creon. This starts to build his tension towards the God’s principles. Creon has the most power and control under civil law. By being a new, inexperienced king, he feels a need to prove to his people the strength and supremacy he can guarantee. In consequence, he makes a narrow-minded law, where no one shall bury Polynices due to Polynice’s betrayal to the state Whoever defies this ruling will face...
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...everyone to swallow. In Antigone, it was hard for Creon to swallow too. Creon, in Antigone, is a tragic hero because of this pride, his character, his actions, and the actions of those around him. A tragic hero will experience a fall in the course of the play. Therefore the tragic hero must start of noble stature, because in order to fall, the hero...
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...Antigone Essay The Tragic Hero in Antigone According to the dictionary, a tragic hero is a literary character who makes an error of judgment or has a fatal flaw that, combined with fate and external forces, brings on a tragedy. In the story "Antigone," by Sophocles, Antigone has all the necessary traits to be qualified as the tragic character of the story. She is an honorable and important person, she has a fearless attitude, and she ends up facing a downfall because of her deeds. Antigone is an honorable and important person in Thebes. She obviously has a very good heart because she has decided to give her brother Polynieces a proper burial even though her uncle, Creon, has forbidden anyone to and has states that if someone does then they will be put to death. Antigone tells her sister, Ismene, "Ismene, I am going to bury him" (Antigone Prologue. 31) Even though she has Creon's threat in her mind, she takes the responsibility of bringing "honor to her family" by burying Polynieces. This shows good character as she is showing love for her family. Also, she does not let Ismene take part in her "crime". This shows how considerate she is of her sister's well being. Another important trait which Antigone has is her fearless attitude and her consistency. Throughout the play, Antigone sticks to her believes. Once she has made the decision to bury Polynieces, she does it without any fear. "Creon is not strong enough to stand in my way" ...
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...Tragic Hero in Antigone According to the dictionary, a tragic hero is a literary character who makes an error of judgment or has a fatal flaw that, combined with fate and external forces, brings on a tragedy. In the story "Antigone," by Sophocles, Antigone has all the necessary traits to be qualified as the tragic character of the story. She is an honorable and important person, she has a fearless attitude, and she ends up facing a downfall because of her deeds. Antigone is an honorable and important person in Thebes. She obviously has a very good heart because she has decided to give her brother Polynieces a proper burial even though her uncle, Creon, has forbidden anyone to and has states that if someone does then they will be put to death. Antigone tells her sister, Ismene, "Ismene, I am going to bury him" (Antigone Prologue. 31) Even though she has Creon's threat in her mind, she takes the responsibility of bringing "honor to her family" by burying Polynieces. This shows good character as she is showing love for her family. Also, she does not let Ismene take part in her "crime". This shows how considerate she is of her sister's well being. Another important trait which Antigone has is her fearless attitude and her consistency. Throughout the play, Antigone sticks to her believes. Once she has made the decision to bury Polynieces, she does it without any fear. "Creon is not strong enough to stand in my way" (Antigone Prologue. 35)...
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...“Antigone” is a play about struggle and passion. To fully understand the play, the previous plays needs to be understood. Antigone and her sister, Ismene, are the daughters of Oedipus, from the play “Oedipus Rex”. Eteocles takes control of Thebes and his brother Polynices raises an army to attack the city; both are killed in the battle. This is where the story of Antigone comes into play. Creon, Oedipus’s brother in law and uncle (Oedipus married his mother) is now King of Thebes. He issues a decree for Eteocles to be buried but for Polynices to be left where he was killed and not to be buried. He honors Eteocles for defending the city, but leaves Polynices body lying out for the people to see and the dogs to eat. However, as part of Polynices family, it is Antigone’s duty and obligation to bury her brothers, and she does so against the orders of the King. Under Creon’s decree, this places the death penalty upon the stubborn young girl. Creon becomes increasingly stubborn as well, eventually showing hubris, which means immense disrespect and excessive pride, this being his hamartia. He imprisons her alive in a tomb, not knowing that his son, Haemon, who is in love with her, follows them to the...
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...Antigone Many people have many different flaws. Some of them benefit from these flaws while others don’t. If we make a flaw in a simple setting it can plummet our whole perception of something , someone, or some place. Creon from the play Antigone By: Sophocles makes many flaws in his plan to prove himself as a true.Creon is conceited, weak, and harsh. One of Creon’s biggest fatal flaws was not burying Polyneices and leaving him out the gates of Thebes to rot. If Creon would have just buried Polyneices none of this would have ever happened. Polyneices has just enough of a fault as Eteocles for their deaths. One brother defending his reputation and right to throne, the other trying to defend greed for the throne. So Creon decides...
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...Discussion # 9 Antigone 1. “I didn't say yes. I can say no to anything I say vile, and I don't have to count the cost. But because you said yes, all that you can do, for all your crown and your trappings, and your guards—all that your can do is to have me killed”. The political heroism in Antigone's resistance is her refusal of state power. Antigone says no to all she finds vile, and in this sense she is more powerful than the ruler beholden to his throne. Despite all his trappings of power, Creon finds himself helpless, unable to act on his own. He wants not to execute Antigone but cannot help ordering her death. Having said yes to state power, he is circumscribed by his own kingship, by very the throne that makes him the master of the land. He has surrendered himself entirely to the state and knows his circumscription all too well. Unlike Antigone, he has completely ceded his desires to take upon the mantle of governance. Creon is rendered loathsome, terrified of what his office requires of him and yet unable to act otherwise. “If Haemon reaches the point where he stops growing pale with fear when I grow pale, stops thinking that I must have been killed in an accident when I am five minutes late, stops feeling that he is alone on earth when I laugh and he doesn't know why—if he too has to learn to say yes to everything—why, no, then, no! I do not love Haemon”. Antigone recants her love for Haemon toward the end of her confrontation with Creon. Creon has unmasked her...
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...The True Tragic Hero of Antigone Since early Greek and Roman times, authors havecreated stories following the life of a tragic hero. Tragic heroes, though they are noble, have a hamartia, or a fatal flaw that causes their inevitable downfall. Sophocles utilizes the role of tragic hero to develop the theme of pride in Anitigone. The protagonist of the play is repeatedly misconceived because Sophocles develops the roles of multiple characters into ones that could be interpreted as a tragic hero. Creon is a member of the royal family of Thebes who becomes king. In assuming this role of immense power and responsibility, he faces misfortunes that lead him to tragedy. The often-misunderstood Creon is the true tragic hero in Sophocles’ play...
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...knows? In the world below perhaps such actions are no crime,” (lines 795-96) Antigone retorts when Creon labels her brother as ‘evil’ for fighting against Thebes. Throughout the play, good and evil-right and wrong, influence many of the character’s words and actions. Likewise, as the plot progresses, Creon is educated on a sense of justice not known by many kings; righteous justice. And through his interactions with Antigone, the king is informed of the sense of justice he had overlooked for so long. But by the time he realizes the fatal flaw, his entire life had already spiraled out of control. Antigone’s sense of justice lied with that of the gods; whereas, Creon’s lied with the laws he had set forth and the belief that anything that stood against his laws was evil. “Zeus did not announce those laws to me. And justice living with the gods below sent no such laws for men.” (lines 509-10) Antigone states to Creon in an effort to show that his laws were feeble in comparison to that of the gods. However,...
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...Antigone Antigone is a very interesting Greek tragedy, full of death, love, and betrayal. The tragedy, Antigone, starts with the death of Antigone’s brothers. Both brothers, Eteocles and Polynices, died fighting each other in combat. Creon, the king of Thebes, has granted permission for Eteocles to have a proper burial, but not for Polynices. The Greeks at this time believed that without burial the person’s spirit would not be able to rest and would be a ghost for eternity. Antigone decided that a burial for her brother Polynices was needed even though Creon ordered that it was forbidden. So when the guards weren’t looking, Antigone threw dirt onto her brothers’ dead body so he could have a proper burial so his body could rest. When Creon found out that someone had thrown dirt onto the body, he ordered that whoever had done it would be put to death. After Creon orders this the guards bring in Antigone, who they caught throwing more dirt on the body of Polynices. Creon condemns Antigone to death for the burial of her brother. Haemon, Creon’s son and also engaged to Antigone, tells his father that he will never see him again if he follows through with her death. Tiresias, the blind prophet, foresees the future and warns Creon of the outcome of his actions. In the end, Creon is left alone, with his son and wife dead all because of his decision to condemn Antigone to death. In the Greek tragedy Antigone by Sophocles, Antigone is not the tragic hero, instead she is a...
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...State control A well established theme in Antigone is the right of the individual to reject society's infringement on her freedom to perform a personal obligation,[14] obvious in Antigone's refusal to let Creon dictate what she is allowed to do with her family members. She says to Ismene about Creon's edict, "He has no right to keep me from my own."[15] Related to this theme is the question whether Antigone's will to bury her brother is based on rational thought or instinct, a debate whose contributors include greats like Goethe.[14] [edit] Natural law and contemporary legal institutions In Antigone, Sophocles asks the question, which law is greater: the gods' or man's. Sophocles votes for the law of the gods. He does this in order to save Athens from the moral destruction which seems imminent. Sophocles wants to warn his countrymen about hubris, or arrogance, because he knows this will be their downfall. In Antigone, the hubris of Creon is revealed. [edit] Civil disobedience The contrasting views of Creon and Antigone with regard to laws higher than those of state inform their different conclusions about civil disobedience. Creon demands obedience to the law above all else, right or wrong. He says that "there is nothing worse than disobedience to authority" (An. 671). Antigone responds with the idea that state law is not absolute, and that it can be broken in civil disobedience in extreme cases, such as honoring the gods, whose rule and authority outweigh Creon's. [edit]...
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...Hamartia in Oedipus the King According to the Aristotelian characteristics of good tragedy, the tragic character should not fall due to either excessive virtue or excessive wickedness, but due to what Aristotle called hamartia. Hamartia may be interpreted as either a flaw in character or an error in judgement. Oedipus, the tragic character in Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, certainly makes several such mistakes; however, the pervasive pattern of his judgemental errors seems to indicate a basic character flaw that precipitates them. Oedipus’ character flaw is ego. This is made evident in the opening lines of the prologue when he states "Here I am myself--you all know me, the world knows my fame: I am Oedipus." (ll. 7-9) His conceit is the root cause of a number of related problems. Among these are recklessness, disrespect, and stubbornness. Oedipus displays an attitude of recklessness and disrespect throughout the play. When he makes his proclamation and no one confesses to the murder of Laius, Oedipus loses patience immediately and rushes into his curse. Later, he displays a short temper to Tiresias: "You, you scum of the earth . . . out with it, once and for all!," (ll. 381, 383) and "Enough! Such filth from him? Insufferable--what, still alive? Get out--faster, back where you came from--vanish!" (ll. 490-492) If an unwillingness to listen may be considered stubbornness, certainly Oedipus would take advice from no one who would tell him to drop the matter of his...
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