Throughout the history of Greek literature, tragic heroes have played a major role in lightening their audience and the writers from present. Such character who fit the definition of a tragic hero is Creon from a famous play name “Antigone”. Creon is a tragic hero because of the conflict in his life and his downfall at the end. His life before becoming the king was heaven like and as soon as he became a king, his life become living hell just like if his faith was already decided by the gods. Becoming the hero of his nation by guiding the country out of the war, getting offended by someone and at the end losing everything and everyone is the characteristics of a tragic hero which Creon has. Many people would say that Creon was a regular person instead of a tragic hero because there was no prophecy by the gods like for Oedipus. True that there was no prophecy for Creon but that doesn’t means that he’s not a tragic hero. Creon had no idea about what was heading toward him and the god also stayed silence, whereas Oedipus did get heads up from the gods but wasn’t able to prevent his prophecy from happening. Same as Oedipus, Creon faced a tragic downfall and lost his family in front of his eyes. If you consider Oedipus to be a tragic hero then Creon is too because he fits Oedipus’s shoes. The country had been through a horrible war in which Antigone’s brothers, “Etheocies” and Polyneices” kills each other. Etheocies was given a proper funeral by Creon whereas Polyneices was considered a traitor and was left unburied. Creon got the country out of the war and made clear to everyone about no one is to bury Polyneices, but hot shot Antigone had to brake the rule and gave proper funeral to Polyneices. Antigone was sent out of the town into a cave where she hung and killed herself.
