Antigone vs. Creon Essay

Although Antigone and Creon both exemplify the characteristics of a tragic hero, Antigone is heroic for standing up for what she believes in while Creon is cowardly.

Antigone, being the tragic hero of the play, has to make the decision of giving her other brother a proper burial or not, which puts her sister, Ismene, and her life on the line. Even though Ismene says.... which means she doesnt want to be involved with the whole situation. Antigone is careless over the whole situation even if that means burying him may kill her. She was not afraid to admit to the burial. Antigone says, I do, I deny nothing (763). This shows that she is very confident in herself and is willing to stick up for what she did.

Creon on the other hand also seemed to be a tragic hero in a way as well. He always took pride in himself, thinking he was always right. He never realized what he was doing what wrong, until the end after he lost his wife, his son, and Antigone from his actions. Creon had the choices of allowing the burial to go through and just ignore the law he made and living a great life with his family, or keep the law strong and putting all of this stress on everyone. Since he picked the decision of sticking with the law and following through, he lost he love ones and Antigone. Knowing that he caused the death of these three and it will live with him forever, it might as well be as bad as dying. He later shows how he cowardly backs down or is going to back down from being king of Thebes. He says, led me away I have been rash and foolish which means he wants to be sent away and he doesnt want to be king anymore.

Even though both Antigone and Creon have the characteristics of being a tragic hero. Sophocles shows that Antigone is more of one then Creon. Antigone is more of a static character, one that stays the same throughout the story, while Creon is shown as a dynamic character, one that changes throughout the story. One thing that showed that they were alike was that they were both independent and based everything on themselves and didnt listen to what anyone else had to say. Although the two are alike in many ways they also have some differences. When the law comes into play Creon made the laws of Thebes and Antigone didnt go by those laws. She followed Gods laws even if that meant that she had to give up her life.

I think when it comes to the end of the story that Antigone is the one that she be called the tragic hero. She dies in doing something right by going against Creon and the law and follows gods law.