Sophocle’s Antigone is a play of expansive and lasting well known appeal. However, it is ironical that most of the play’s admirers have hardly arrived at a concurrence regarding its interpretation. This paper seeks to discuss one character in the play, Creon, who becomes the new king of Thebes following the deaths of former leaders, Polynices and Eteocles fighting in the battle. Creon’s rule to the Thebes people is authoritative, strictly insensitive, manipulative, and filled with pride.
Creon starts off as a person of good character but his own imperfections lead him astray immediately after gaining power. The king’s unclear fate apparently becomes vicious as the play progresses as a result of his changing pitfalls. As the play develops, the king’s fate takes a divine route. We see his son Haemon, who is also Antigone’s husband at first praising his father with loyalty but suddenly disagrees with his ideas by stating that his father should not think him alone, can be right. He tells his father that he has no obligation to infringe on God’s right.
As a king of Thebes, Creon is seen as an authoritative leader whose expression of power is eminent. The explanation for his approach of command is evident when he says that whoever the city appoints as the ruler must be obeyed in all measures, however little or great, and in the things that are just and unjust. Similarly, he states that disobedience is what ruins the cities as it is the worst of all evils and that the king should not be swayed by the storms but instead always remain bold and devoted to the compatriots. The virtues of unity and discipline are the only defenses of Creon’s authoritarianism.
Creon is seen as an overly strict and insensitive leader with several weaknesses and shortcomings. During his opening speech upon being the new king, he installs fear to the people of Thebes. He warns and acknowledges that no one should put the interest of other person above the good of the Thebe nation and that an individual who keeps silent about adopting the soundest policies the nation is worthless.
The traits of Creon’s leadership are not likable. However, Creon meets the theory of Aristotle in the sense that he is now the king and therefore the top-most person in the Thebes community. Likewise, he is also human and hence prone to making mistakes and at the same time has some strength to propel his leadership. By administering the order, Creon has no affinity for the beliefs of his nation and his family members such as Antigone and Ismene.
Further, Creon denies offering Polynices a decent burial as he identifies him as a traitor despite Antigone pleading with him that Polynices was only a brother but not a slave. Ironically, he decrees that there will be a death penalty to anyone who offered to give Polynices a decent send off. The sentry is hesitant to tell the king that the order was broken by Antigone who went ahead and tried to accord Polynices a proper burial. Thus, he is afraid that the king will meet him with violence and threats. True to it, the king orders the sentry to give out the criminals or be subjected to pain (Sophocles 75).
Creon is manipulative and subjects the people of Thebes to unfair ruling believing that he is right and that the state of Thebes out to be controlled. The king does not view the coin from the other side and gauge how his people feel about his leadership. Creon has an inner feeling that he has to prove his presence as the new king at the expense of Antigone. The uncalculated judgement filled with ego will eventually do more harm to the king than good from the beginning.
Throughout the play, Creon goes against Antigone exalting himself that he is now the king and, therefore, cannot take advice from anybody. The king’s primary strength is the fact that he cannot be persuaded, a quality that is often good for kings in running their kingdoms. Similarly, he strongly believes in following the law to the letter but as the play ends, it dawns on him that he has subjected the people of Thebes to pain and affliction during his reign as the king. However, it is too late.
King Creon is portrayed as a proud leader. Tiresias- the blind prophet constantly warned the Thebes leaders about the implications of their poor leadership. When the prophet warned the king against sentencing Antigone to death after she buried her brother, the king gives the prophet a deaf ear. Tiresias brands the kings stubbornness as a stupid crime (1137-1138). In Greek, pride is a sign of downfall and the prophet cautions the king about it. However, Creon stays put and calls the prophet a money launderer. Angered by those sentiments, Tiresias prophesies of a wrath that would personally follow the king because he has angered the gods.
As play comes to an end, it becomes clear that to Creon that indeed he has failed the Thebes people by letting pride take control of him. He acknowledges that the greatest tragedy in his leadership is that he has not effectively managed the conflicts of the people due to his hubris. When he declares that his blinded heart has taken him from darkness to darkness, it is a clear acceptance that he neither effectively led the people nor made their live easier by solving their problems. In the end the Creon loses his son to suicide following the death of his mother Antigone who also dies of suicide. Thinking that he was ruling with the interests of Thebes people at heart, the king loses all he had.
The king goes through all the stages of a tragic character and his hubris do not allow him to find solutions to problems. Tiresias prophesy is finally coming to pass and Creon realizes that all did not turn out the way he anticipated and expected. The tragedies come to an end with the irony of reversal where the unlucky becomes the fortunate and the discredited becomes the new heroes. The tragic value of Creon’s suffering is dependent on the constitution and elements of his suffering.
The tragedy that befalls the king is the same tragedy that befell the proud, self-denying, and sublime Juan when he actually thought that he had finally found the right path only for his own letter to Mariana to get back to him. Similarly, the poem portrays Ozymandias as a proud character who despite achieving much and calming to be the King of Kings is now lonely and in solitude in the wilderness.
