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Antigone as a Tragic Hero - Paper Essay Example

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Antigone as a Tragic Hero - Paper Essay Example
Antigone as a tragic hero

Introduction
Sophocles were one of the best Ancient Greek dramatists, who formed the structure of the theatre. Here, tragedy does not mean that the play ends with a tragedy, or it has an unhappy ending. It means that the hero, though having the potential of winning the situations, still could not win due to obstacles. Aristotelian has defined tragedy as the replication of an act that is serious also, as having scale, complete in it. It includes events arousing sympathy and terror, where with to achieve the catharsis of such emotions (Kennedy, pp. 352-360). The hero that goes through tragedy will be the most effectively evoke with both sympathy and terror, if he is neither thoroughly good nor thoroughly evil but a combination of both.

Antigone, as a tragic hero
Antigone was the tragic hero, as he has the potential for greatness, but he fated to fail. Antigone nonetheless has the potential to win, but he was trapped in a situation where no matter how much he tried, eventually he failed as he could not win the situation (Higgins, pp. 35-46). The reason for her not winning the situation was making a tragic flaw, which caused his greatness to fall massively. Antigone is considered as a tragic hero because even though he has fallen badly, still his efforts were so appreciable that his spirit is still alive and had a moral victory.
Antigone in the beginning of the play very bravely took his sister out for a secret meeting. The reason was to burry Polyneice’s body, but her sister refused to help her. Antigone was so daring that despite knowing the punishment; still she went to bury her brother herself. Antigone eventually buried the body, and the Sentry fearfully reported that the body has been buried. Creon, another character of the story, was curious to know who did so, and order the Sentry to find out the culprit. He was so angry that he even asked him to either find the culprit or to face death himself. After a struggle, Sentry found

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