‘No man who is his country's enemy shall call himself my friend.’ This quote implies that leaving the body unburied is done to show respect for Thebes. After all, how could the ruler of a city-state honour a man who attempted to invade and conquer his city? From that perspective, Creon's actions are completely just and supported by his ideals.
One such important ideal in Ancient Greece was the belief that the government was to have no control in matters concerning religious beliefs. In Antigone's eyes, Creon betrayed that ideal by not allowing her to properly bury her brother, Polynices. She believed that the burial was a religious ceremony, that the ‘order did not come from God’ and Creon did not have the authority or power to deny Polynices that right. Antigone's strong beliefs eventually lead to her death by the hand of Creon:
‘Justice, that dwells with the gods below, knows no such law. I did not think your edicts strong enough to overrule the unwritten unalterable laws of God and heaven, you being only a man.’ (Antigone p138)
Never, though, does she stop defending what she thought to be right. As Creon orders her to her death, Antigone exclaims, ‘Go I, his prisoner, because I honoured those things to which honour truly belongs.’ She is directly humiliating Creon by describing his opinions and decisions as weak and unjust. She also emphasises ‘his prisoner,’ (denoted by italicised print), which tells us that Creon's decision to capture Antigone was his own, and was not backed up by the majority of the people. She feels that Creon is abusing his power as king and dealing with her task to a personal level.
The contradictions between the beliefs of Creon and Antigone pervade throughout the play. Antigone is motivated by her strong religious feelings while Creon is out to make good for his city-state. The chorus' opinion, along with Teiresias’ words forms the determining factor, as in the end, they convince Creon to show mercy and set Antigone free. Creon has to weigh each factor carefully, and in the end, he has to decide between ideals. His ‘heart is torn in two:’
‘It is hard to give way, and hard to stand and abide the coming of the curse. Both ways are hard.’
Creon is forced to decide the unanswerable, and determine right from wrong when there is no clear answer. After the realisation of his own actions Creon imparts to the Chorus his inner feelings of remorse and sorrow. He now accepts they are ‘dead for [his] fault, not [theirs].’ His anger and frustration reflected by the line, ‘O the curse of my stubborn will!’ At the play's end Creon is left desolate and broken in spirit. In his narrow and unduly rigid adherence to his civic duties, Creon has defied the gods through his denial of humanity's common obligations toward the dead. The play thus concerns the conflicting obligations of civic versus personal loyalties and religious morals.
In Oedipus at Colonus, Creon has significantly aged. He is aware of the strength of Athens and accordingly plans no hostilities: ‘mine is no violent purpose; I am too old.’ His claims his purpose is that of a delegate from Thebes wishing to bring Oedipus back, ‘Now Oedipus, poor unhappy man, come home; Don’t refuse me; all your people ask you.’ Oedipus hotly accuses Creon of brazen hypocrisy; when ‘banishment was [his] dearest wish’ Creon denied it, and later, once Oedipus’ rage and grief subsided Creon hounded him ‘out to exile.’ Oedipus suspects Creon offers only false charity and hollow kindness, ‘covering [his] hate with a cloak of seeming affection.’ In return he promises Creon only vengeance who then turns belligerent, declaring he has seized Ismene and now holds her hostage. Oedipus enrages Creon when he declares, ‘[his everlasting curse upon [Creon’s] country!’ and continues his verbal assault, ‘Heartless fiend!’ Theseus then arrives ensuring no harm comes of Oedipus. Theseus is made the more honourable character and is portrayed in such a way to emphasise Creon’s act of vehement irrationality, which strongly contrasts with his earlier basis of reasoning in King Oedipus.
Theseus goes on to deplore Creon’s actions claiming that he himself would abide by the laws imposed in Thebes and follow the forms of conduct appropriate to visitors. Creon now appears bitter, resentful, crude and contemptuous of the customs of other countries when he responds that his people ‘would never receive a polluted parricide, a party to an incestuous union.’ It is clear from such differing character portrayals of Creon that Sophocles uses this as a device to cater for dramatic needs, appropriate to each play.
Numerous other character weaknesses of Creon begin to present themselves throughout the three plays. Creon is seen as compassionate in ‘King Oedipus’, as is there evidence of his pity towards Oedipus: ‘I had brought them to you. I knew how much you loved them – how you love them still.’ Creon represents the model of moderation, passing no desire to act revenge for Oedipus’ earlier insults and slander, even after Oedipus says to Creon, ‘You are my bitterest enemy.’ However, Creon lacks any true sympathy or understanding, demonstrated through his cold delivery of orders towards the closing lines: ‘Go then. But leave the children. Command no more. Obey. Your rule is ended.’ Any emotion held by Creon for Oedipus is absent from Oedipus at Colonus, when he visits him claiming ulterior motives, ‘Cover our shame, come home to your father’s city.’ Antigone sees Creon transformed into a man who is hypocritical, irrational, violent and lacking any sense of warmth and emotion: ‘You crawling viper!’ ‘I’ll have her taken to a desert place where no man ever walked – there she may pray to Death’
Throughout Antigone, Creon is distinctly resistant to persuasion. This is another of the plays tragic ironies due to Creon’s earlier stance on taking advice: ‘I have always held the view that a king, unwilling to seek advice, is damned.’ Since he takes none himself (except for when it is clearly too late) he is being hypocritical and it is as if he seals his own fate. His also becomes extremely obstinate, of which interestingly contrasts Creon’s earlier views once again in King Oedipus: ‘Can you believe this obstinacy does you any good?’ In Antigone, there are two stubborn characters - Antigone herself, and Creon. Antigone believes that she is right - the twist of this play is that she is in fact right. But, she would not appear right at first to the Athenian male audience. Creon makes a point of not bending and Haemon's advice about the good ruler bending like branches caught in a flood, is quickly forgotten:
‘So, on the margin of a flooded river trees bending to the torrent live unbroken, while those that strain against it are snapped off.’
For Creon, his immunity to persuasion is apparently a matter of pride. But in fact, as the Athenian audience would have recognised, it is a fatal weakness. He believes it is weak to obey - he does not realise that the ability to accept a superior argument was a necessary skill for a new man in a democratic context. He would indeed, as Haemon tells him, be an ideal ruler ‘on a desert island.’
Antigone returns later on, primarily to highlight Creon's unreasonable cruelty. The reader is aware of Ismene's innocence, but Creon condemns her at first anyway. Later he relents, and this is the first sign that he is beginning to perhaps doubt himself by attempting to go back on his earlier decisions. Ismene in her second scene now has to play a different role - dramatically her task is to introduce the theme of Antigone's betrothal to Creon's son Haemon, ‘You could not take her – kill your own son’s bride? This is not character development - she is still subordinate to the dictates of the plot. If Ismene were not there, it would be hard for Antigone to disclose such information to the reader without introducing a subsidiary theme and thus limit Sophocles’ economy of writing. Whether they love each other or not, is unimportant to Sophocles; Haemon is similar to Ismene, the perfect Greek son/daughter, whose duty first and last is to his father and his family. A large aspect of the play is that confrontation between father and son because this was a matter of real importance for Athenians.
In Antigone, Creon’s delineation places stark contrast to that of his previous character illustrated in King Oedipus. He is now incredibly chauvinistic, sexist, ‘Keep them within the proper place for women,’ an emotionless dictator and narcissistic, a point echoed through the chorus, ‘There is nothing beyond his power.’ In summary, we are presented with a negative portrayal of Creon who serves to exemplify all that is bad in human character.
Another ‘flaw’ in Creon's personality is his promulgation of social stereotypes. Seated on a throne of absolute power, Creon's conceptions about the social hierarchy bring him to believe, on one hand, that the mere young age of his son is a good enough reason to discard his requests, ‘Am I to take lessons at my time of life from a fellow of his age?’ But on the other hand that the mere authority of Teiresias is a good enough reason to believe the prophet's words: ‘You are welcome, father Teiresias. What’s your news? – There was never a time when I failed to heed it, father.’ Furthermore, his derogatory attitude towards women is clearly visible when he states that it is ‘better [to] be beaten, if need be, by a man, than let a woman get the better of us’ and that he’ll ‘have no woman’s law here, while [he] lives.’ His contempt for women also comes through, when he tries to convince Haemon that Antigone is ‘so vile a creature’ and not worthy of being his bride. ‘You’ll have bought cold comfort if your wife’s a worthless one. This girl’s an enemy; away with her, and let her go and find a mate in Hades’ and his harsh view on the ‘Lust and wiles of a woman.’ In other words, he degrades the value of women to the factors of being mere objects for pleasure and suchlike.
After the death of Oedipus, Creon inherits the throne. He sets himself up right from the beginning when he proclaims the standards of his kingship and declares that ‘When [he] sees any danger threatening [his] people, whatever it may be, [he] shall declare it.’ He feels that it is important to show his people that they can rely on him, and therefore he wants to set an example of his greatness. Although his standards may indeed be beneficent and sound, he perverts them by imposing them as absolute standard convention, forgetting that although ideals may be absolute, humans are not. Instead of leaving room for flexibility, he confines himself in a set of self-imposed laws in order to emulate the kings before him who, to him, represent the way to wield great power:
‘Knowing that you were loyal subjects when King Laius reigned, and when King Oedipus so wisely ruled us.’
Since he does not leave any room for his own experiences as a ruler, but rather wants to be seen as a perfect king from the beginning, he makes it impossible for himself to learn and improve. Furthermore, his self-reliance is jeopardised by his totally deluded impression that he is the keeper of the right path and that the whole city of Thebes (except Antigone) stands behind him and his law:
To Antigone – ‘None of my subjects thinks as you do.’
Antigone’s response – ‘Yes, sir, they do; but dare not tell you so.’
With so much absolute power behind him, he is convinced that he is self-reliant, since he can act and impose onto others however he wishes. Nevertheless, the power he has does not come from his strength as a self-aware person, but from his inheritance of the crown. Consequently, he is overwhelmed, corrupted and enslaved by his own might.
Moreover, we find out that Creon's new feeling of infallibility also brings about his lack of emotion toward others: ‘You and your paramour. I hate you both – Not I but death shall take her.’ His dominant narcissism and obsessive behaviour regarding power, ‘Since when do I take my orders from the people of Thebes?’ results in estrangement from others. He even considers his own honour and pride more important than his son's love for Antigone, even after Haemon makes a touchingly emotional plea to him, in which he asks his father to review his absolutist and single-minded ways:
‘So, father, pause, and put aside your anger. I think, for what my young opinion’s worth, that, good as it is to have infallible wisdom, since this is rarely found, the next best thing is to be willing to listen to wise advice.’
Despite Haemon's plea, we see Creon's ego harden even more (another indication of his resistance to persuasion) which eventually leads to a fierce dispute between father and son. Creon's lack of emotion and love reaches its apogee when he implies he will kill his son's bride Antigone, claiming that he will ‘never marry her this side of death.’ Creon’s his self-love now makes it impossible for him to love others or see their point of view: ‘Wrong? To respect my own authority.’ – ‘You’ll learn what wrong-headedness is, my friend, to your cost.’ In this particular confrontation of Creon with his son Haemon, we see that Haemon is a grown-up, self-reliant and independently thinking young man - this does not correlate with Creon's expectations of a dutiful and attentive son who is ‘obedient, loyal [and] ready to strike down [his] father’s foes.’ The fact that Creon cannot control his son's mind to suit his needs drives his cruelty even further, ‘I’ll make to sorry for your impudence. Bring out that she-devil, and let her die now, with her bridegroom by to see it done!’ To underline this, Sophocles envelops the play in tragic irony. Creon tells his son, ‘Do not be fooled, my son, by lust and the wiles of a woman’, while it is in fact Creon, not Haemon, who loses his sense of judgement and rationality (Change in character from King Oedipus). As a result Creon loses his son because the attempts made to keep his son away from Antigone heighten Haemon’s determination to be with her - eventually resulting in his suicide: ‘Haemon is dead, Slain by his own hand.’
Another tragically ironic passage is when Creon fails his own standard:
‘He whom the state appoints must be obeyed to the smallest matter, be it right – or wrong. And he that rules his household, without a doubt, will make the wisest king.’ Losing his son over a mindless dispute, he himself cannot be considered ruling his household well, and therefore is not fit to rule the state either.
Creon enters a dialogue throughout the plays with the Leader of the Chorus, who represents Creon's inner-self or conscience. Up to that particular point in the play, it was Creon's chauvinistic manner, and cruel ego that brought about his decisions, preventing him from listening to his inner voice. The burden of suddenly having to be a king (of which he pointed out in King Oedipus, ‘…for an uneasy throne’), coupled with his lack of emotion and blatant promulgation of social stereotypes, causes so many grave mistakes in only one day, that he ultimately cannot ignore his self's voice anymore: ‘It is true, I killed him.’ It is here that he acts self-reliantly for the first time, and the pivotal scene at the end of Antigone shows us what a true inner conscience can do to help us align our plans with our true wishes:
Chorus ‘Ask nothing. What is to be, no mortal can escape.’
For example, in Antigone, Creon judges his son Haemon according to his (Creon's) beliefs of right or wrong. Instead of accepting Haemon's stance and trying to explore his point of view, Creon shuts him out to protect his own values, ‘I am king, and responsible only to myself.’
It is interesting to note that the play seems to take place in only one day, and that it creates the impression that we are seeing real-time events. However, many things happen which cannot be the consequences of only one day (like the public opinion on Creon's actions), so Sophocles has successfully made it feel as if the play was happening on two different time levels.
Sophocles' Theban plays all share a common theme; The pain and suffering caused when an individual, obstinately defying the dictates of divine, or refusing to yield to destiny and circumstance, instead obeys some inner compulsion that leads to agonising revelation. In the three plays (King Oedipus and Antigone especially) this Sophoclean theme is developed through the use of a special sort of irony common to all Greek tragedy. The plays works on the presumption that the audience or reader is familiar with the tale, which the playwright then adjusts to its most relevant vantage point to pervade a larger meaning.
The dramatic and thematic concerns as a result have governed Creon’s portrayal. Sophocles increased the number of actors from two to three, thus lessening the influence of the chorus and making possible greater complication of the plot and the more effective portrayal of character by contrast and juxtaposition. He also changed the ‘Aeschylean’ fashion of composing plays in groups of three, each of them part of a central myth or theme, and instead made each play an independent psychological and dramatic unity, focussing on human frailties. Sophocles also created a change in the spirit and significance of a tragedy. From then on, although problems of and morality still provided the themes, the nature of man, his problems, and his struggles became the chief interest.
The Theban plays present few characters, impressive in their determination and power and possessing a few strongly drawn qualities or faults that combine with a particular set of circumstances to lead them inevitably to a tragic fate. Sophocles develops his characters' rush to tragedy with great economy, concentration, and dramatic effectiveness. Sophocles emphasises that most people lack wisdom, and he presents truth in collision with ignorance, delusion, and folly. Many scenes dramatise flaws or failure in thinking (deceptive reports and rumours, false optimism, hasty judgement,
madness). Creon also does something involving grave error (his refusal to save Antigone from her death); this affects others, each of whom reacts in his own way (Haemon commits suicide), thereby causing the chief agent to take another step toward ruin - his own and that of others as well (his wife Eurydice):
‘I am nothing. I have no life. Lead me away… My hands have done amiss, my head is bowed with fate too heavy for me.’
Sophocles' language responds flexibly to the dramatic needs of the moment; it can be ponderously weighty, ‘Who walks his own high-handed way, disdaining true righteousness and holy ornament; who falsely wins, all sacred things profaning; shall he escape his doomed pride’s punishment?’ swift moving, ‘Go then. Command no more. Obey. Your rule is ended,’ emotionally intense, ‘Kill me! Drown me in the depths of the sea! Take me!’ highly decorative, ‘And thunder of war in his ears. The Father of Heaven abhors the proud tongue’s boasting; He marked the oncoming torrent, the flashing stream…’ or perfectly plain and simple, ‘We are very sorry for you, Oedipus, and for your daughters.’ Sophocles has also been universally admired for the sympathy and vividness with which he delineates his characters; especially notable are his tragic women, such as Antigone in the third play. She at first is portrayed unfavourably to the audience as the rebellious, non-conformist. However, when summoned to her death, Sophocles softens her image yet she remains morally strong – she now is painted as the tragic heroine of the play and Sophocles attempts to extend our sympathy to her.
These thematic and dramatic devices meld into a compact drama. The action is usually limited to one setting and to a single day. There are few digressions; the play moves swiftly and directly, and the plot is often compressed. Sophocles' economy can be seen in Antigone. Even before Creon's edict concerning Polynices' burial is made public, Antigone has disobeyed it. Partly as a result for this compression, offstage action is very important in Greek tragedy. For example, the Greeks made no attempts to portray violence onstage. Consequently, the messenger becomes an important figure in Sophocles' plays. The messenger acts as a traditional figure of exposition - the witness who comes to tell others of events that have transpired elsewhere.
Creon throughout the Theban trilogy is an individual moving in a complex entanglement of will and circumstance, passion and altruism, guilt and innocence. Essentially speaking, he is a tragic character and his mistakes serve as an example for our lives perhaps resulting in our own self-change and catharsis as we try to define ourselves and the roles we play in society. Although such characters may be fictitious, they have the same aspirations as we do, only on a more intense level allowing us to see exemplary consequences of human nature:
‘What is to be, no mortal can escape.’
