The most identifiable characteristic of a tragic hero is blindness. Not the physical disability, but the lack of ability to be aware of his surroundings. The tragic hero in this sense is blind from the start. He is not alert to the fact that the way he sees his situation may not be true. Creon is not prepared to admit that he might be wrong. His vision may well include a certain narrowness (something we might like to call tunnel vision), and yet because he sees the world that way, he is also the one with the most confidence in his own sight and the one most ready to act in accordance with what he sees.
The way he sees the world lies at the very source of what makes him the tragic hero. What makes Creon such a shoe in for the role of the tragic is not that he suffers horribly and endures at the end an almost living death, as one might expect. However, it comes from the connection between Antigone’s sufferings as in the loss of her brother and Creons own actions, that is, from the awareness of how he himself is bringing upon his own head the dreadful outcome. All the negative aspects of the play are a direct result of something Creon did. This is an important point because in common language we often use the term tragic as a loose synonym for terrible, pathetic, or horrible (e. g.
, a tragic accident).
But strictly speaking in a literary sense, true accidents are never tragic, because they are accidents; they occur by chance. What makes this tragedy so moving is the step-by-step link between the hero’s own decisions throughout the play and the disaster which awaits. Sophoclean tragedy works, in part, through this sense of inevitability (Aristotle).
The Essay on The Analysis of “Loser-hero”, “Tragic loser-hero” and “Failed loyalist hero” Archetypes in Japanese Literature
In the book “Warriors of Japan as Portrayed in the War Tales”, as the title suggests, author Paul Varley studies numerous war tales from hundreds of years of Japanese history, throughout the rise of the samurai warrior culture and the societal change that went along with it. From ancient war tales like the Shomonki to tales firmly in the medieval times like the Taiheiki, the changes in battlefield ...
Creon is doomed, mainly because he is the sort of person he is. Someone else, someone with a very different character, would not have suffered Creon s life.
It can be seen that one key to Creon s character is that he will not compromise. He must see life through on his own terms, no matter what the cost. He refused to recognize his son s love and eventually caused him to take his own life. Creon also was not prepared to acknowledge authority outside his own. Antigone, being an independent, was the bane to Creons existence. He could not be satisfied unless the world answered to him and his every demand.
This sort of character is expressing a certain very powerful freedom: the freedom to demand from life what he needs to satisfy him, no matter what common prudence, ethical norms, or personal safety might dictate. In this sense, the tragic attitude, as exemplified by Creon is an expression of our sense of individual freedom pushed to the highest degree. When we hear the word hero we usually don t think of the bad guy and when we hear the word tragic we usually don t relate it to narrow mindedness. It s hard for anyone, especially royalty, to see into the future the consequences of their actions. Creon was heroic in trying to do what he thought was right. Unfortunately for Creon he let his skewed view of what was true become his own personal reality.
His actions brought the eventual down fall of his family and because he was to proud to admit his fallibility, when the smoke cleared, he was the only one left standing.
