Flaws can be such a minor thing that can destroy some ones life or sometimes be seen as a mere nothing. Antigone is a brave, determined, risk-taking, and passionate girl growing up in the city of Thebes. She would never let law stop her from doing what is right. She knew she was going to severely punished by King Creon, but that did not disrupt her mission. She buried her so-called ‘traitor’ of a brother because she loved him. In the play Antigone, Sophocles uses Antigone’s hubris to show how it can lead to the character’s complete downfall and an impact to others.
Antigone’s flaw or hubris is evident in the act of burying Polyneices body. In Antigone, King Creon establishes a decree to how Polyneices may not be buried because he is a back-stabber and a traitor to Thebes, Antigone doesn’t not abide by it because of her extreme stubbornness. Creon’s decree was, “Eteocles, who died fighting for his country, is to be buried with full military honors. Polyneices who broke his exile to come back with fire and sword against his country is to have no burial; no man shall touch his body, he shall be left unburied, so scavenging dogs may tear him apart” (676). Antigone’s flaw is that she is stubborn and arrogant. Her stubborn attitude causes her to disregard Creon’s rule and bury her brother. Creon believes Polyneices should not be buried because he think Polyneices plan was to “spill the blood of his blood,” which meant to kill, his own flesh and blood, Eteocles and sell the people of Thebes into slavery (676). Antigone knew that is she had left her, “brother lying in death unburied,” she “should have suffered” (679). Antigone believes everyone should receive a proper burial no matter what they have done; this was the God’s rules as well. Antigone’s terrible flaw was that she was stubborn. Since she was stubborn she thought it would be right to bury the body even though Creon specifically told everyone in town to not touch the body. This action of hers led to some horrific events. Antigone’s stubbornness caused her downfall. She was brought to Creon’s palace and there she was sentenced to death. She was evidently stubborn during Creon’s questioning when she said she denied nothing and how she believed she was always right with the choices she makes. Creon knew she was stubborn when and related it to her being like her father how they are both “deaf to reason” and how Antigone “has never learned to yield” (679). What Creon meant to this was that she ignores things like her father and does things because they seem correct to her. Creon decided to “carry her far away out there in the wilderness and lock her living in a vault of stone, and she shall have food, as the custom is, to absolve her death,” (691). Antigone was carried out to the cave in the wilderness and kept there, but her downfall was not over yet. She despised staying in the sealed stone vault, so she unwound he fine linen veil and hung herself. Antigone’s downfall was composed being sentenced to live in a vault away from
