Madeline

English 103H (11:00-12:15)

Tuesday, September 17, 13

Creon as an Ideal Aristotelian Tragic Hero

According to Aristotle’s four points, Creon is an ideal tragic hero. While he is

“highly renowned and prosperous” (handout), a great king who is respected and obeyed

throughout his kingdom, he is not preeminently virtuous, often losing his temper and

striking fear into the hearts of his subjects. His excessive pride also poses a problem for

his kingdom, causing him to make impulsive decisions that go against the gods’ will. The

consequences of these decisions ultimately lead to the suicides of his wife and son,

allowing him to experience a moment of clarity about the true effects of his choices. The

realization that he is to blame for their deaths nearly ruins him, but he still manages to

confess to the kingdom and to accept both punishment and responsibility for his actions.

Creon is a well-known figure throughout his kingdom. This recognition began

when Creon’s sister married one of the earlier kings of Thebes, Laius, and grew as he

became good friends with his sister’s second husband, Oedipus the king. After his sister

committed suicide and Oedipus was exiled, their sons inherited the throne, but they

slaughtered each other, and Creon became the new king. This ascent to power was

accompanied by riches and an increased amount of respect from his subjects, thus

fulfilling the first half of Aristotle’s first point: that a tragic hero must be renowned and

prosperous.

Creon, although respected and affluent, is not exceptionally virtuous. He makes

tireless attempts to do what is right for the state, but he scares the people into silent
obedience with strict laws and harsh punishments. His laws also go against the will of the

gods, causing unrest among the people. When one, Antigone, decides to go against one of

these laws and bury her brother, Creon becomes enraged at her disloyalty and sentences

her to die alone in a sealed cave. He says, “Come, you must learn that over-stubborn

spirits are those most often humbled” (Sophocles 76). This display of stoic justice along

with the unjust law that led up to it prove that Creon fulfills the second part of Aristotle’s

first point: that a tragic hero must not be preeminently virtuous.

Throughout “Oedipus Rex,” Creon is a voice of reason within the chaos created

by Oedipus’ pride, but in “Antigone,” Creon becomes the same stubborn and hubristic

king that he had previously scorned Oedipus for being. This tragic flaw, the sin of pride,

leads to his eventual downfall in a few distinct ways. First, it allows him to believe that

his laws are above the laws of the gods. When Antigone disobeys his order to leave her

brother unburied, she states that the gods’ laws transcend his, to which he responds, “this

girl was already schooled in insolence…and now she adds insult to injury” (Sophocles

76). His implications clearly demonstrate his belief that he and his laws have more

authority than the gods themselves. Second, his pride causes him to ignore the pleas of

his son to see the truth. Haemon realizes that his father is wrong, and he tries as gently as

possible to express the hard truth: that his subjects agree with Antigone. Creon’s

immense pride blinds him to his son’s honesty and makes him even more determined to

see Antigone punished. He says, “you will never marry her this side of the grave”

(Sophocles 85). Finally, his pride leads him to argue with Tiresias, even though he knows

everything the prophet says comes to pass. These actions, caused by pride, allow Creon

to fulfill Aristotle’s second point: that a tragic hero must have a tragic flaw.
 After making many errors on account of his great pride, Creon finally has a

moment of peripety. Many people argue that this moment occurs after Tiresias’ speech

condemning Creon to “surrender corpse for corpses, one begotten from the seed of your

own loins” (Sophocles 96). But this is not the case. After this speech, although shaken,

Creon still does not accept his fate. He asks the chorus what he should do, and when they

advise him to listen to Tiresias and free Antigone he is disgusted. He says, “You think

that I should yield?” (Sophocles 97) as if he still believes that he is in the right. After his

son Haemon kills himself, he still does not have this moment. He is definitely sad, but he

speaks of learning his lesson to the people of Thebes as if out of necessity, not guilt. He

laments publicly to demonstrate his “great sorrow” for what has happened. His true

moment of peripety, however, comes after he learns of his wife’s suicide. He says, “I am

shaken with fear. Will nobody take his two-edged sword and run me through?”

(Sophocles 104). This final death solidifies Creon’s guilt and allows him to realize fully

just how many people his pride affected in a negative way. In this moment, Creon fulfills

Aristotle’s third point: that a tragic hero must be made aware of the true consequences of

his actions.

These many deaths and tragedies affect Creon adversely. He takes full

responsibility for his wrongdoings and begs the chorus to kill him, but they do not. They

simply remove him from the throne and allow him to wallow in his own misery.

Although they do not punish him immediately, it can be inferred from the chorus’s

statement, “Whatever is going to happen is already fated. No one can change it”

(Sophocles 105), that Creon will eventually receive a more tangible punishment for his

actions. His acceptance of this responsibility and punishment fulfills Aristotle’s fourth
and final point: that a tragic hero must accept the consequences of his actions and take

full responsibility for them.

By the end of this play, Sophocles has developed an ideal Aristotelian tragic hero

by the name of Creon. Creon fulfills all the necessary points, beginning with the first:

being renowned and prosperous, yet not preeminently virtuous. He is a well-known and

respected king with riches, a beautiful wife, and a kind, handsome son. He fulfills the

second point by being proud. Hubris is his tragic flaw, and it causes him to make many

mistakes throughout the play. He fulfills the third point after witnessing both his son’s

suicide and the aftermath of his wife’s suicide. This moment of peripety allows him to

see clearly just how badly his pride had affected others. He fulfills the final point by

simply accepting responsibility for his actions. After doing this, moral order is restored to

the kingdom. The people are no longer under the rule of a proud and controlling king, and

Creon is to be punished for his crimes by fate.