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Antigone By Joseph Campbell: The Making Of A Hero

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The Making of a Hero

“A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself”
(Joseph Campbell). The preceding line is written by Joseph Campbell, an American mythologist, writer, and lecturer. Through many of Campbell’s works he describes his beliefs of heroes in mythology and expresses that hero's look beyond themselves. .The selflessness Campbell describes can also be seen in the works Antigone, the Iliad, On the Rainy River, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. A hero’s physical characteristics can be muscular and strong, to scrawny and smart, but the underlying virtue of the hero remains the same.
To illustrate the morality of a hero, in Antigone, the main character Antigone, expresses heroism by her self sacrifice for her brother and her devotion to the Gods. The story begins with the death of Antigone and Ismene’s brothers Polyneices and Eteocles. The new king of Thebes Creon, created a law saying no one …show more content…

In Greek Mythology a hero is someone who has great courage, strengths, and is celebrated for his/her bold exploits. Antigone shows that she has great courage and strength by giving her brother a proper burial even though it is against the king's wishes and it will lead to her death. Antigone says that Polyneices is so dear to her that she will give her life for his honor. The Gods believe that everyone should have a proper burial. Antigone believes that her crime is holy because it is following the laws of the Gods. She hopes the people of Thebes will honor her for her bold actions. Antigone and Creon are arguing about Antigone’s actions. Creon believes it was wrong to go against him, and that she should be punished. Antigone accepts the consequences of her actions but she

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After Creon declares the entombment of Antigone for attempting to bury Polynices against the declaration of his edict, Antigone laments her consequence of death. She displays a change in trait from her hubris as she expresses sorrow in her recognition that she will die at young age and never be able to marry or have children. The Chorus, in return provide their final judgment to Antigone as they state, “Your own blind will, your passion has destroyed you.” (Chorus, 959). Although the Chorus is sympathetic to Antigone’s sorrow, they remind her that she faces her death as a consequence to her negligence to overruling state power.

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In the novel “Antigone”, one of the main characters, Antigone, is hero within the texts for her heroic actions. She follows many of the guidelines that are written in Campbell’s “A Hero’s Journey”. In Antigone, she fought against the injustice of Creon and his tyranny laws. In the novel, Creon refused to allow Polyneices, the brother of Antigone, a proper burial. In ancient Rome, a proper burial meant that the person would be allowed passage into the afterlife.

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A hero is defined as a person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities. In Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey, the reader is abided by a warrior named Odysseus on his journey homeward. The story begins when all the hero’s except Odyessus are home. Calypso has fallen in love with him and is not allowing him to leave. When he finally leaves he demonstrates many characteristics that make him such an admired man, but three in particular are that he is extremely wise, has excessive pride, and tremendously brave.

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I consider Antigone as the tragic hero for what she faced, defending her righteous goal. Despite the royal decree that anyone who does what she done, shall be put to death. Her honor and will are both remarkable characteristics, for a hero. She sets an example of defiance for all generations, even though she lost everything.

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“Not so self-centered that you never listen to other people” (Hugh Hefner). In the story of Antigone, Creon shows the characteristics of a tragic hero, as he is the king he shows his self-confident and he does not recognize his flaws until the end of the story. All of this leads into his downfall in the tragedy and causes him to realized what he had done. Creon is a tragic hero because of his self-righteousness, his excessive pride, and he does not listen to the opinion of others.

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Consequently, Antigone was a good example to others, but not for the rest. Not only because she had the courage to go against the government, Antigone had the bravery to go against her uncle. Therefore her actions were honorable, because she was strong enough to be idolized by the people that wanted to do the right things, which they believed it was right. Furthermore, Antigone actions were reasonable, because all she wanted was to give everybody a “happy ending”, even though she did, she died making the souls of her brothers’ rest in peace in the way they wanted to. In addition, if Antigone ended up alive in the stories she could lead a revolutionary strike.

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The play, Antigone, is a tragedy written by the Greek poet Sophocles. A common theme among tragedies is that they have a tragic hero, and Antigone is no different. The tragic hero of this poem is Creon, the King of Thebes. Creon is faced with the difficult task of punishing his niece, Antigone. She has broken one of his laws stating that no one is to give proper burial rites to Polyneices, Antigone’s brother, because he tried to overthrow Creon.

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Antigone points out to Creon that he has risen fear against him, and the fear is stopping the citizens of Thebes from agreeing with her on what she believes is right. Having her beliefs and opinions in mind, Antigone protects her actions against Ismene and Creon to further secure her personal dignity.

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In Sophocles’ play Antigone, Creon, the king of Thebes, best represents a tragic hero. Creon demonstrates goodness in his intentions for Thebes as well as his fragile state due to the fact that he recently lost several family members. Creon, newly named king, finds himself as highest ranking official around, showing superiority. Creon often acts stubborn and prideful, his tragic flaw. And lastly, he must come to terms with the fact that he caused the death of his wife, son, and niece.

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In the play, Antigone, Sophocles reveals a story of a character who responds significantly to an injustice. After a war between brothers’ Eteocles and Polyneices, both brothers are slain, but Creon, Antigone’s uncle, refused to bury Polyneices due to him fighting against the city. Antigone, the main character, decides to bury her brother against Creon’s orders, resulting in a conflict between the already cursed family. With the unjust refusal from Creon to not bury Polyneices, Antigone decides to stand up against this injustice, even if it means losing her life. Sophocles writes about a stubborn Antigone who believes she is following God’s law, in order to create justice between the cursed family and solve the unjust created by Creon, to

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Antigone being the one to fight for her beliefs and obeying the god's laws attempts the burial of Polyneices and goes against Creon’s law to prove to him that he’s in over his head that he has too much pride in himself, in lines 15-35 Antigone claims that she is going to go

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Creon, the antagonist of the play, implements a decree to minimize betrayal from the people of Thebes. The order states that his nephew, Polyneices, may not have a proper burial due to his acts of treason; anyone who defies this rule will be punished. The eponymous character of the play, Creon’s niece, holds a different opinion and gives Polyneices the burial she believes he deserves. Sure enough, Creon catches Antigone and executes her by attempting to starve her to death. Overall, Creon’s demeanor does not work in his favor because the gods give him a fate worse than death.

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Antigone’s actions are motivated by her allegiance to her family, moral conscience, and religion amid Creon’s political injustice and tyranny. Antigone’s actions motivate her to demand Ismene to prove whether she is “a true sister or a traitor to your family” (26-27). Antigone maintains loyalty to her brother despite his actions which threatened Thebes. Her inability to bear the thought of her brother’s corpse being picked apart by animals and not being honored with proper funeral rites forces her to act. Antigone’s fierce allegiance to her family is laid bare as she is willing to sacrifice her life to honor her brother and defy the law in an act that she believes is morally just.

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In Sophocles’ Antigone, Antigone and Creon both have qualities of a tragic hero according to Aristotle’s definition. Aristotle believes a tragic hero is a decent human, but falls due to a weakness in one’s character. In the plot, Antigone decides to bury her brother, which defies the laws of Creon, the dictator of Thebes. Antigone believes she must hold her family values and the gods’ beliefs with utmost respect. Antigone refuses to deny her crime, so she is sentenced to be death by Creon.

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She does not understand why she is being treated so unjustly for trying to do the right thing. The chorus in the play tries convincing Antigone that justice is behaving in accordance to Creon’s laws but Antigone is stubborn and sustains to her convictions. Even though Antigone ends up dying she dies achieving her goal of wanting to bury her brother properly. Mostly everyone in this play goes against what the main character feels is justly because they want to follow the kings laws and they believe she is acting immorally. Antigone is not acting immorally, she is doing the right thing to follow the law of the gods.

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