Antigone Tragic Hero

Aristotle once said that "A man doesn't become a hero until he can see the root of his own downfall.” This ideology creates something that is known as a tragic hero. Aristotle has created a set of characteristics that define a tragic hero. One prime example of a tragic hero is Antigone. She fulfills every characteristic required to be one. To provide context, Antigone’s story starts with her brothers, Polyneices and Eteocles. Since their father, Oedipus, had left the throne, they had been sharing it. It didn’t take much time for one to become greedy and try to keep the throne. This was Eteocles, and he took the throne and kept it, banishing his brother from the city. Polyneices then gathered an army and went to battle against Eteocles. But the thing is, it was foretold that if they were to fight, they would end up dying in battle. So Polyneices asked Antigone to bury him when he died.
One characteristic of a tragic hero is a reversal of fortune. This is …show more content…
Antigone’s fate was death yet her only “crime” was burying her brother. Though it is debatable if Antigone really did commit a crime, it would still be commonly accepted that the punishment did not fit. I feel that her punishment should have been something like being banished from the city or to not receive a proper burial herself. But this is only if she should be punished at all. Personally, I don’t think she deserved any punishment. I listened to her case and feel that she was right to fulfill her promise.
In Conclusion, Antigone is a tragic hero through and through. She checks off all requirements on Aristotle's list to be one. Antigone recognized that her doom was caused by herself. She had excessive pride which was also her fatal flaw (hamartia). Her fate was greater than deserved. And Antigone had a reversal of fortune. This story of Antigone leaves a question to be answered; Is your pride worth dying for?