Antihero in Anigone

The good guy that is so bad that their good

In Antigone, Antigone is the anti-hero of the play, rather than Creon. In one way Creon is the main character of the play. He has more stage time than anyone else. He is on stage from start to end. And, one could even argue, he is the "protagonist" of the conflict. In fact, this particular play wreaks havoc on traditional definitions of "protagonist" and "antagonist," as well as "anti-hero." But he is not the anti-hero. Antigone is the anti-hero of this play, not Creon, because Creon did not die a martyr, he simply suffered.

To suggest that Creon is the anti-hero is to totally misread Antigone, and to totally miss the point of the play. Sophocles named the play after Antigone, which is no small thing. Sophocles wants us to see Antigone as a heroic and tragic figure. Creon is not tragic; he is pitiful. There is a difference; Antigone is a sympathetic character whereas Creon may be only looked at in sympathy towards the end of the play, only because of his severe mistakes. After Creon’s dreadful downfall, Haimon and Eurydice’s deaths and Creon’s realization of the wrong done. Creon breaks down and is left alone to live with the choices he has made since everyone in his family, Eurydice, haimon, Antigone and ismene have been killed or committed suicide.

Almost every other character I the story could be considered a better anti-hero than Creon. For example, haimon could be considered the anti-hero because he love Antigone and tried to convince Creon that she did not deserve to die for burying her brother and when she died he pulled out his sword and, in a state of rage and anger that his father locked Antigone away forcing her to commit suicide, tried to kill Creon but instead decided to impale himself with his own sword taking his own life.

I think that Antigone is the anti-hero because she is the one who had to suffer throughout the entire story. First, of all her father Oedipus killed his father and married his mother...