Antigone: A Study of Tragic Heroism

This article explores the concept of tragic heroism in Sophocles' play Antigone. It analyzes the characters of Antigone and Creon and their tragic flaws. The article argues that Creon is the tragic hero of the play due to his self-pride and stubbornness, which lead to his downfall.

Running head: ANTIGONE
ANTIGONE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note:

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Introduction
Sophocles is one of the very famous Greek play writers, mainly focusing on the genre
of tragedy in his writings. He wrote more than 120 plays in number. However among all of
these only 7 have survived in their complete form till date. These 7 essays are “Ajax,
Antigone, The Women of Trachis, Oedipus Rex, Electra, Philoctetes and Oedipus at
Colonus.” There were many play writing and drama competitions in Athens. Sophocles had
participated in 30 of these competitions mainly based on religious topics and won 23 of them.
In others we were the second. The two of his most famous tragedies were Oedipus and
Antigone.
The play Antigone was written around 441 B.C. The play is third in the series of the
“Three Theban Plays”, however it was written first in the order. In this drama there are
various characters such as Antigone, Ismene, Creon, Haemon, Tiresias, and a group of elderly
Theban men among others (Goheen). The plot of the story mainly revolves around Creon the
new ruler of Thebes and Antigone who is the sister of Polyneices.
Creon is the tragic hero in the play Antigone, and he becomes the cause of his
own fall, mainly because of his pride and stubbornness.
Discussion
The writer has built the narrative of the play in a very interesting manner in which
both Antigone and Creon in their own ways had aspects of tragic incidents throughout the
play. In a tragic drama the person who has the most tragic end can be considered as the tragic
hero. Aristotle has suggested that a tragic hero must give rise to a “sense of pity” in the mind
of the audience. The attributes of a tragic hero is greater in the character of Creon, hence he
can be thought as the tragic hero in this case.

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Creon who is the ruler of the Kingdom of Thebes is also the uncle of Antigone,
however he could usurp the throne as a result of a serious quarrel between two of his
nephews, Eteocles and Polyneices. Both of the brothers died and the throne was usurped by
Creon who decided that Eteocles must be honoured because of his achievements whereas
Polyneices will be ashamed in the public. Creon publicly announces “And so I have the
throne, all royal power, for I’m the one most closely linked by blood to those who have been
killed” So he is a self-proclaimed ruler who has gained by the death of his own nephews
(Benardete). The tragedy starts with this fact itself that he had to wait for the death of his own
nephews to get the throne.
Creon had got the chance of being the ruler of the kingdom and he could have used
this opportunity in his favour for increasing the fame he had, but because of his flaws, his
self-pride and his audacity had destroyed his fate and his downfall was imminent. Creon can
be initially perceived as the antagonist in the play. His statement “… Polyneices, I saw, is to
have no burial: no man is to touch him or say the least prayer for him; he shall lie on the
plain, unburied; and the birds and the scavenging dogs can do with him whatever they like.”,
is the reflection of his character in the play. Creon had decided to give the worst
contemporary punishment to Polyneices, to not allow a respectable burial and to let the body
of him being consumed by the dogs or the worms. This is a ruthless penalty in contemporary
Thebes.
Antigone on the other hand was a princess however she had never shown any princess
type attributes, she never boasted about her position. Antigone states to her sister “Look—
what’s Creon doing with our two brothers? He’s honouring one with a full funeral and
treating the other one disgracefully! Eteocles, they say, has had his burial according to our
customary rites, to win him honour with the dead below. But as for Polyneices, who perished
so miserably, an order has gone out throughout the city—that’s what people say. He’s to have

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no funeral or lament, but to be left unburied and unwept, a sweet treasure for the birds to look
at, for them to feed on to their heart’s content.” Therefore Antigone decides to bury his
brother’s body and in doing so she wants to get help from her sister.
“You forget yourself. You are speaking to your King!” This statement of Creon
reflects the level of pride and superiority he possesses about himself. Antigone on the other
hand is a person with great humility and she takes up the disobedience against Creon just
because of the ill treatment given to her deceased brother.
The son of Creon whose name is Haemon, was engaged to Antigone, in spite of that
he decided to side with his father in subduing the endeavours of Antigone to protest against
the decisions of Creon. Therefore love becomes secondary in the face of power and Haemon
decides to ditch his fiancée to be at his father’s side.
The narrative throughout has revealed that Creon as a ruler had made many major
tragic flaws. One of the major among these is “Self Pride”. Antigone is more ambitious than
he should have been. “….is of less importance; but if I had left my brother lying in death
unburied, I should have suffered. Now I do not.” By this statement she defies the orders of
the king and establishes her own desire to give her brother a respectable end. The trait shown
by Antigone is however much less self-destructive than Creon who out of his Pride is ready
to do anything (Benardete).
One of the very common features of the tragic heroes that they learn from their own
mistakes. Therefore it is a question whether Creon learnt from his own mistakes. One of the
reasons that Antigone is sometimes taken as the tragic hero from the play is because the play
is named after her, however after a careful study of the whole text it can be understood that
Creon has shown typical characteristic features of a tragic hero by destroying himself with
self-pride and then realising the mistakes he had committed in his life and brooding about it.

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Some readers believe that as she is the protagonist she should be respected as the tragic hero
of the play. Also she herself is quoted as saying “I should have praise ½ and honour for what
I have done. All these men here would praise me were their lips not frozen shut with fear of
you.” Or “Creon is not strong enough to stand in my way” (Lansky). There is however a very
vast difference between a protagonist and a tragic hero. The steps that make up a tragic hero
are, superiority than the others, getting towards perfection, then a tragic fall down, after
which there will be a realisation, the realisation that the downfall is caused by his or her own
mistakes. These characteristics are typically seen to be reflected by Creon. Creon has
attained the position of the King of the city that makes him much more superior than
everyone else in the play. Creon states “As long as I am King, no traitor is going to be
honoured with the loyal man.” This is the superiority and authority of Creon.
There was a reason that Sophocle decided to make Creon the tragic hero of the play
but not name the play after him. First of all the first thing the author wanted to establish is
that not every hero has to be favoured by the audience or gain their sympathy. The realisation
of Creon about his misdeeds are something that makes his standing as the tragic hero even
stronger. He admits “I have been rash and foolish. I have killed my son and my wife.” This at
one hand shows his unpleasantness on the other hand shows his realisation about the mistakes
he has done. Both Antigone and Creon are the main characters of the play, however the
characteristic features of Creon much more reflects the aspect of a tragic hero even more than
Antigone. Creon’s attaining the superior position, then losing control and committing tragic
flaws, then falling down and realising his mistakes all these aspects help in constructing him
as the tragic hero of the play (Bobrick).
Conclusion

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It is understood from the study of the play Antigone that any person who utilises the
superior position in committing tragic flaws are sure to fall down. Tragic flaws here signifies
the various aspects like, over confidence, self-pride, boasting of one’s power and similar
other traits. These have to be controlled by a person in order to not fall down very badly as
happened with Creon. The basic principle of human life is to morally live helping others and
trying to cause as less disturbance in others life as much possible. Creon could have resisted
his self-pride, and audacious nature which would have saved him from his tragic ending.

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Reference:
Benardete, Seth. "Sacred Transgressions: A Reading of Sophocles' Antigone." (2014).
Bobrick, E., 2015. Sophocles’ Antigone and the self-isolation of the tragic
hero. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 35(1), pp.40-46.
Goheen, Robert Francis. Imagery of Sophocles Antigone. Princeton University Press, 2017.
Hawkins, Shane. "Book Review: Sophocles' Antigone. A Verse Translation with Introduction
and Notes." The Classical Review 64.1 (2014): 304.
Lansky, Melvin R. "The Escalation of Conflict in Sophocles’ Antigone." Psychoanalytic
Inquiry 35.1 (2015): 47-52.