King Creon Character Analysis

Antigone, by Sophocles, illustrates a character, King Creon, who is willing to give up his own family in order to show his authority. In this selection, it is witness how Antigone goes against her uncle’s laws and his blindness results in unfortunate events. King Creon tries to show the power he has to the city of Thebes, which leads him to make poor decisions. By the time he realizes the mistake he had done, it was too late. Through his stubbornness and arrogance, King Creon ignored reason that led to the deaths of Antigone, Haemon, and his wife Eurydice.

In fact, the first opportunity King Creon had to change his own terrible fate was when he stated his law to deny burial to Polynices. Sophocles demonstrated this by writing, “—a proclamation has forbidden the city to dignify him with burial ... No, he must be left unburied, his corpse carrion for the birds and dogs to tear,” (2.227-230). As stated, King Creon

When King Creon became aware that Antigone had buried Polynices body, he was furious. He immediately declared death for Antigone. He wanted to show people that what he would state was to be done and if anyone was willing to go against him they would suffer the consequences. His pride overcame the fact that it was his niece whom he wanted to leave to starve and die. This is shown when, Tiresias, a prophet, proclaims “stubbornness brands you for stupidity – pride is a crime” (Sophocles, 2.1136-1137). This prophet warned King Creon that decisions were going against the Gods and that his fate was eventually going to pay for what he was doing. This prophet tried convincing King Creon to let Antigone free and leave Polynices body to die in peace, but he did not listen to his words. All of his ignorance blind him from reason and left him to believe that only what he thought was right. King Creon wanted to show everyone that he was not weak and that no one was to go against