Pride that Leads to Tragedy

Pride can be a very pernicious quality in a person. This theme is displayed very well by Creon, a character in the book Antigone and also the tragic hero, whose pride led him to a tragic downfall. Sophocles, the author of this Greek drama, encompasses tragedy in most of his plays. As I mentioned before, a bad quality of Creon is his obstinacy. This got in the way of a lot of things, including his family. Creon, the king of Thebes, believed at one point that State comes before family. The reason he said that statement is because he wanted to prevent anarchy and if he were to let only his family break the law, then all the townspeople would get very angry. Letting his condescension blind him, Creon ignored the warning of Tiresias, a blind prophet, and his son Haemon. Following this rebuff, Creon gets a wake-up call from the gods and loses most of his family. Although he went through this cataclysm, he did it with the seemliness he had not previously displayed. He acted so noble because the hardships he went through changed his principles. Creon realizes that family should come before state and that he did not need to let his pride get in the way of his duties as a part of his family. The audience, everyone who read the book in Mrs. Pink s class, at one point probably felt sorry for Creon. He had to deal with so many different adversities that he went from a bad guy persona to a person that deserved sympathy. Even though we may have felt sorry for Creon at one time, he did not deserve too much pity because he could have changed his mind at one point. He had many opportunities to change his mind, including when he talked to Tiresisas, as I stated before. If Creon had rethought his arrogance, his fate wouldn t have been half as bad as it turned out to be. In closing, Creon was an arrogant, conceited person until he experienced the loss of his family. After he lost them, he was changed in every way that he could be, emotionally. Creon was the tragic hero because of the fact that his pride led him to a tragic downfall.