Throughout the play, Antigone, both Creon and Antigone suffer from tragic flaws which eventually lead to their downfall. Creon and Antigone cannot control their tragic excessiveness; this leads to the public’s negative opinion of him, while Antigone commits suicide due to her tragic excessiveness. The tragic flaw that ruins Creon’s life is his inability to see that he could be wrong; he is too narrow minded to accept the views of others, even though they are the correct ones. Antigone’s tragic flaw is that she has too much pride; Antigone is set out on a mission to carry out her brother’s wishes, no matter what the consequences may be for her. Both characters suffer from not realizing that no matter their social position there are boundaries set for them that help keep them in line; they both fail to stay within these boundaries.
Creon acts on behalf of his patriotic views, but is far too stubborn to accept any other theory on what to do with Polynices’ burial. In a way he shares Antigone’s tragic flaw of pride as he is too full of himself to accept any criticism about his choice to not give Polynices a proper burial. At the end of the play Creon accepts his guilt, but it is too late as Antigone has already killed herself. At first Creon’s motives are sincere and patriotic as he sees Polynices as an enemy of the state: “I here proclaim to the city that this man shall no one honor with a grave and none shall mourn. You shall leave him without burial; you shall watch him chewed up by birds and dogs violated. Such is my mind in the matter; never by me shall the wicked man have precedence over the just”(222-226). It is Creon’s tragic flaw which leads to his downfall concerning this matter: “Is she not tainted by the disease of wickedness? The entire people of Thebes say no to that. Should the city tell me how I am to rule them”(791-793). Everyone of Thebes disagrees with Creon’s decision
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