Creons Folly - Literature review Example

Creon’s Folly Greek dramas generally tend to focus on a sole dramatic event that is the result of one of the character’s major flaws. In Sophocles’ Antigone, the character Creon loses his family because of characteristics that he refused to acknowledge as problematic. By determining that Polyneices should not be buried, Creon sets in motion events that only lead to his own suffering. The events of the play happen because Creon is tyrannical, prideful, and has an overly strong belief in the rule of human law. Though he does not kill any of the other characters in the play himself, it is not hard to argue that their blood is on his hands in a metaphorical sense. Of course, not even Creon is able to refuse his guilt after the events of the play: “he goes on to say that Creon gradually deteriorates in the dramas” (Peterkin 263). The first characteristic that brings about the loss of Creon’s family is his tyrannical nature. When the play begins, both Eteocles and Polyneices have died in battle, but Creon has determined that only Eteocles will be buried: “but Polyneices,/ Who fought as bravely and died as miserably,--/ They say that Creon has sworn/ No one shall bury him, no one mourn for him,/ But his body must lie in the fields, a sweet treasure/ For the carrion birds to find” (1.17-22). In any culture it is important for a body to be properly cared for and buried. In Greece it is particularly important because it is their belief that a soul cannot cross into the afterlife if the body has not been properly cared for and received an appropriate burial. It is a final insult upon the person who has died for the body to be treated in such a manner. Though Polyneices was nobility and related to Creon, Creon decided to make an example out of him because of his involvement in the war. Beyond the treatment of Polyneices’ body, Creon decrees that Antigone should be executed for ignoring his decree. As the fiancé of his son, Creon is sentencing is would be daughter-in-law and niece to death: “There are enough places for him to push his plow./ I want no wicked women for my sons!” (2.154-155). Obviously, only a tyrant who felt that he could do whatever he wanted to do would anything along the lines of what Creon did to his own family members. Even his own son Haimon informs Creon that is feared by his own people: “You temper terrifies them—everyone/ Will tell you only what you like to hear” (59-60). Considering what he has done to his own family members and how people around him are afraid to disagree with him, Creon’s tyrannical behavior went unchecked and allowed him to make the decisions that cost him his family. The second characteristic that needs to be mentioned is Creon’s strict adherence to the law. In order to discourage any of the same disregard for human law that Polyneices exhibited, Creon decides to ignore divine law: “but his brother Polyneices, who broke his exile to come back with fire and sword against against his native city…is to have no burial: no man is to touch him or say the least prayer for him…and the birds and the scavenging dogs can do with him whatever they like (1.155-161). The entire reason that Creon is doing this is because Polyneices was of royal blood and he exhibited behavior that was extremely subversive to the rule of law. Creon assumed that if these sort of actions were not properly addressed, then the people of the city might assume that they could behave in disregard to the law as well and not fear harsh punishment. This is the same reason that he decides that he has to have Antigone put to death. When she breaks Creon’s decree and performs a proper burial for her brother, Creon feels that he has no other option if he is to preserve the citizens’ respect for the law. Creon’s decision to have Antigone put to death causes a rift with his son as well who was betrothed to her. Creon apparently felt that he could not change his mind even at the begging of his son for his fiancé: “Let him do, or dream to do, more than a man can./ He shall not save these girls from death” (137-138). In the end his son swears that Creon will never see his him again: “Not here, no; she will not die here, King./ And you will never see my face again./ Go on raving as long as you’ve a friend to endure you” (132-134). Because of Creon’s strict adherence to the laws, he breaks divine laws, sentences his niece to death, and pushes his son away. Most of all, it is Creon’s pride that above all forces him into this situation. He might have been able to look past various aspects of his attitudes, but his pride keeps coming back to keep him from making better decisions. When Antigone stands up to him, it is very bit as much his ego that he is responding to as it is the law. Every time his power and authority is questioned, he resorted to putting people down: “Who is the man here,/ She or I, if this crime goes unpunished?” (2.82-83). He could not allow Antigone to show herself to be more powerful than him. Women were considered in Greek society, so it would have been even more of an injury to his ego if he had allowed Antigone to stand up to him in such a way: “But how much worse than this/ Is brazen boasting of barefaced anarchy!” (2.91-92). Creon was also reacting to his pride when he refused to listen to his son in any way when he was attempting to reason with his father. Admitting that his son who was so much younger than him had any wisdom to offer him as king was not something that Creon could accept: “You consider it right for a man of my years and experience/ To go to school to a boy?” (3.95-96). Even when Teiresias, an old, wise prophet, attempts to tell him of the errors of his ways, he initially refuses to accept the advice, insisting that Teiresisas is mistaken or has been bribed to offer this advice: “It seems that prophets have made me their especial province./ All my life long/ I have been a kind of butt fir the dull arrows/ of doddering fortune-tellers…it is a sorry thing when a wise man/ Sells his wisdom, lets out his words for hire” (3.41-53). Even when someone such as Teiresias, who has shown his wisdom in the previous play in the series, attempts to inform Creon that he is in error, Creon’s hurt pride turns to insults to soothe itself. Many tragic heroes, Creon realizes the errors of his flaws at the end of the play. He accepts responsibility for his actions: “I have killed my son and my wife./ I look for comfort; my comfort lies here dead./ Whatever my hands have touched has come to nothing./ Fate has brought all my pride to a thought of dust” (6-134-139). Considering Creon’s change in attitude and Antigone’s steadfast remainder in her attitudes forces us to question their roles in the play: “Because Creon, more than Antigone, goes through the classic phases of the tragic plot…it is worth considering whether he, rather than Antigone , is the tragic hero of the play” (Western 412). Works Cited Davis, Paul, “Sophocles,” Western Literature in a World Context, ed. Paul Davis, New York, St. Martin’s Press 1995 Peterkin, Denis, “The Creon of Sophocles.” Classical Philology, vol. 24, 1929. Sophocles, Antigone. Western Literature in a World Context, ed. Paul Davis, New York, St. Martin’s Press 1995. Read More