Oedipus 'Creon In Sophocles' Antigone

Compared to Oedipus, Antigone or any other characters in the plays, excluding the Chorus, Creon is the only main character who spends the most time in all three plays and has a different personality in each play, which should give him the honor of having the play named after his name. His constant presence and pivotal words are so important to these plays that he cannot simply be disregarded because of his autocratic personality. His presence should rather be seen as the thread that stitches everything together. The role of hamartia, however, is deeply rooted in The Oedipus Plays since each main character, Oedipus, Antigone, and Creon become victims of their own hamartia. One important characteristic of a tragic hero is their hubris or excessive …show more content…
"I Oedipus whom all men call the Great" (11). Readers later learn that he had every reason to be proud because he solved the riddle of the Sphinx and saved the people of Thebes, thus being proud of his accomplishment was a right he had earned. Another instance depicting him being prideful is when he attempts to outrun his fate that The Oracle of Delphi has predicted of him marrying his biological mother and murdering his father. To escape his fate, he leaves his adopted parents and his home in Corinth and travels to Thebes. Instead of accepting his fate he assumes he is in control of his destiny and tries to escape it but he fails miserably. On his way to Thebes, he gets into a physical fight with an old man and ends up murdering him. When he reaches Thebes, Oedipus saves Thebes from a Sphinx by solving the riddle, eventually becomes King because of his heroic action and ends up marrying the queen. One after another, he blindly committed every crime he most feared by rebelling against his predestined fate and walking straight into …show more content…
“It is not for him to keep me from my own” (163). Although Antigone is fully aware that Creon has forbidden burying Polyneices, the fearless Antigone asserts she is not afraid and Creon cannot keep her from burying her dead brother and giving him a proper burial. This healthy pride for her family and the Gods quickly transforms into arrogant pride that conceals her rational mind. She goes on to claim that if she must die, she will be buried next to her brother and although she will be a criminal, she will be known as a religious one, a criminal that has died in fulfilling the commandments of the gods. Once Antigone is dead, she expects Ismene to shout it out and tell everyone about her 'heroic actions.' This depicts her acknowledgment of people’s praise and attention and furthermore proves that her pride has turned into a selfish