Family Conflicts in Antigone Essay Sample

📌Category: Antigone, Plays, Sophocles, Writers
📌Words: 1441
📌Pages: 6
📌Published: 03 April 2022

"In books, often the bad guys have a story too, and sometimes it is just as tragic as the hero's."-Jennifer Megan Varnadore. This quote is sometimes true, and I always think about this when I am reading any book. I always try to see how the antagonist could have a tragic end too. Sophocles' story Antigone demonstrates how, even in ancient Greece, family conflicts abound. The story is set in Thebes, where the people are recovering from a conflict in which their last monarch, Eteocles, was killed by his brother Polyneices. King Creon's first order as king is to punish anyone who attempts to bury Polyneices, who has been a traitor since he led the attack on Thebes. Despite the fact that Creon is Antigone's uncle, she challenges the king because she believes she is correct in burying her brother. So in this essay, I am going to explain how the new king of Creon meets Aristotle's six criteria for a tragic hero, which include the character’s background, flaws, mistakes, reversal of fortune, and acceptance of fate. Creon is the tragic hero because he was an admirable person, being in the position of king, realizing his mistakes, and by the end of the play, literally begging for mercy as he meets Aristotle's criteria. 

The first criteria for Aristotle’s tragic hero is that the character is someone in a position of prominence who is admirable. That is exactly what Creon is: he is the new king of Thebes. He is replacing the old king who has just died in a war. Creon is admirable because he is a harsh king, but a good one at first, who is trying to bring power back to Thebes. When he issues his first strict order on Thebes, telling the citizens that they cannot bury Polyneices, we see that he is an admirable character.He tells the citizens that "he must be left unburied, his corpse carrion for the birds and dogs to tear."(9) So we can see that he is a strong and tough leader, which means he is admirable and even gives lectures when he says, "Death is the price—you’re right... The mere hope of money has ruined many men. "(9)  So we can actually see that at the beginning of the play, he is an admirable character because he is a tough and strong leader. But that is Creon's major flaw, which is Aristotle's second criteria; he is just too tough of a leader. He is so tough as a leader that he has become a little insecure in his position after Creon finds out that someone tried to bury Polyneices. He even starts to blame people for the crime by saying, "I’m convinced—they’ve perverted my own guard, bribed them to do their work."(12) This is his flaw: he is thinking that the only way people would go against my order is for money, so he is so strict that he is proving that he is a good king. To the point, he thinks that the only way people would betray him is for money. Even though Creon is attempting to be a good leader by making his first order so difficult that no one will be brave enough to defy him,He is so sure of it, but when someone does defy his order, Creon just starts blaming the people that they have bribed, so really, when someone defies him, he becomes insecure about his position. 

The next step in Aristotle's six criteria for a tragic hero is that the hero makes a big mistake because of his flaw, or in Greek, hamartia. When Creon does exactly that, he makes a big mistake, since Creon's flaw is that he is too strict as a leader and has made the punishment of burying Polyneices death by stoning. Antigone, knowing this, decides she doesn't care about the consequences. She still tries to bury her brother. Unfortunately for her, she is caught in the act and is sent to Creon. Creon, even knowing that this is his niece, says, "She is the man if the victory goes to her and she goes free."(18) He is saying that if he lets Antigone go free, then he has no power as the man of the house. If he lets Antigone defy his order, then he still goes free. A bit later, I will tell you how this is a mistake, but just know that this plays a big part. Antigone tells Creon, "What more do you want than my execution?" (19) and he replies, "Nothing." Then I have it all. "(19) So we can see that Creon will only truly be satisfied if he executes Antigone and that he won’t accept anything else. This was a big mistake because of the reversal of fortune he experienced afterwards. Which is actually the step Aristotle’s six criteria for a tragic hero, which is to have a reversal of fortune. I think there is one small thing I forgot to mention: that Antigone is the fiance of Creon’s last living son, Haemon. Haemon and Antigone, which any fiance would do, confronts his father about sentencing Antigone to death. Creon actually changes the punishment. Now he will just send Antigone off to starve to death. But anyway, Haemon will not stand for his fiance's death and tell his father that "her death will kill another."(30) He is referring to himself and is saying he will kill himself if Creon kills Antigone, and we can actually see this towards the end of the play when Haemon kills himself after seeing Antigone’s dead body. So even though Creon thought he was doing the right thing by ordering Antigone to death, his doing that led to Haemon killing himself out of devastation over his fiance's death.

That leads us to the last two steps in Aristotle's six criteria for a tragic hero. The fifth step is that the character experiences a moment of insight in which he or she recognizes their own part in this downfall. So unfortunately, Creon’s action of sending Antigone off to starve resulted in Haemon, his last son, killing himself, and unfortunately, Haemon’s mom and Creon’s wife, Eurydice, killed herself too. Creon is heartbroken and says, "I shudder with dread! Why not kill me too? "(50)  At this point, Creon is basically dead from the inside; he knows that his actions led to the deaths of his family. He is the only person from his family that is alive. He feels like he is a dead man walking. Creon also says, "Take me away, quickly, out of sight. I don’t even exist. I'm no one. Nothing"(51). So really, he has realized what he has done and that he should even live because he is practically no one now. That leads us to the last step of Aristotle’s criteria, which is that the audience feels bad about the character at the end. I am not too sure about you, but I feel bad for Creon. Yeah, he was a jerk, but he was just trying to do his job and, unfortunately, it got personal and it ended up killing his family. I mean, Creon at the end of the book is just depressed. He says, "Come, let it come... so I never have to see another sunrise". (51) We can see that Creon is just completely crushed from the inside, and it is clear that he does not want to live anymore. He can’t live knowing what he did and at the end even says "take me away, I beg you, out of sight." (51)Wow, he was even begging for mercy at the end. I genuinely feel bad for Creon. Even though he was a jerk and he wasn’t even a hero, he was just trying to do his job, and his order was defied, as he tried to punish those responsible for his family's killing. So really, you have to feel bad for Creon. He went from being a king to a human being who was begging to die at the end of the play. 

To summarize what I am trying to say, Creon is a tragic hero according to Aristotle’s six criteria because of his character’s background, flaws, mistakes, reversal of fortune, acceptance of fate, and the feeling of sadness we feel as the reader. Creon was a king whose flaw was that he was just too strict, and he made a big mistake by sending Antigone off to die because it resulted in his son and wife committing suicide. At the end, he realizes what he has done and comes to the point where he is begging for his death, and as the reader, you have to feel bad that his one mistake resulted in the deaths of his family. So remember what I quoted? "In books, often the bad guys have a story too, and sometimes it is just as tragic as the hero's." Sometimes the bad guy is broken from the inside or he does something really stupid that harms him. Sometimes when you feel like someone is being mean to you, just remember there is a reason and maybe they are just going through something and being mean to you is just a coverup. Remember, just like Creon, the bad guys could be tragic heroes too.

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