Character Analysis of Creon Antigone, by Sophocles

Essay by llamapoopHigh School, 10th grade April 2008

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In Antigone, written by Sophocles, Creon dominates the play with his powerful yet arrogant personality. Even though Antigone is the name of this play, Creon, the ruling king of Thebes with a no turning back attitude, proves to be the main character. Creon rules over everyone but that does not stop the intelligent Antigone from protecting her brother’s dead body. She gets caught in this illegal act by the very dynamic character of Creon. There are endless personality traits to describe Creon, but certain traits that pop out are his strength/power and his stubbornness.

“Who is the man here, she or I if this crime goes unpunished?”(Scene 2, lines 82,83). This quote is a simple example of how stubborn a king with that much pride can act toward his own family. We then learn that no matter how wrong he is in his decisions, he still sticks with what he believes to be the right punishment to Antigone. The other proving quote in Scene 3 (line 26) is when Creon states, “Do you want me to show myself before the people? Or to break my sworn word? No, and I will not.” Creon slowly starts to realize the right thing to do in his situation but something inside of him prevents him from saving Antigone. It could quite possibly be him knowing his own strength and power compared to everyone else.

His strength plays a key role in the problems that occurred. Antigone sees right through this personality trait of his. “Creon is not strong enough to stand in my way.”(Prologue, line 35) Also,in Scene 1 line 118 Creon says,“There’s nothing in this world that is more demoralizing than money.” Creon really means it when he says this. He thinks that everything in...