The characters of Antigone and Creon in Antigone by Sophocles Antigone is the story of divine punishment and human imperfection. In this tragedy, a powerful king, Creon, is overthrown by the gods due to his disregard for their divine laws and true justice triumphs in the end. Creon makes the mistake of placing his personal opinions above divine laws and fails in the eyes of the gods. He makes the mistake of testing the power of the Gods and the remaining story is essentially Creon's degeneration. After Antigone's "crime", Creon appears more and more like a lone warrior in his cause and his family and supporters begin to abandon him. As the tragedy progresses, Creon becomes more and more hostile and ultimately, through the destruction of his own family, he is rightly punished by the Gods. Antigone, on the other hand, proves to be an instrument of Creon's undoing because it is her death that sets off a chain reaction to the first. Antigone has two brothers: - Eteocles and Polynices, both fighting for opposing sides in the Theban war. While Eteocles fights for the protection of Thebes, that of Polyneices fights to conquer it. At the end of the war and the beginning of the story, it is shown that Thebes won but both brothers perished. The story goes on to state that Polyneices was condemned as a traitor by Creon (and the city's edicts) while Eteocles is hailed as a hero and martyr. The refusal of a brother's burial and his condemnation to a worse afterlife forces Antigone to sacrifice herself for him. The protagonist, Antigone and the antagonist, Creon are pushed towards...... middle of paper ...... and finally makes the former see the truth. Antigone, Haemon and Eurydice are presented as the instruments of Creon's destruction. Their death sends the final message of God's disapproval of Creon's actions and they die because of Creon's sins. In the end, Creon himself is forced to admit his guilt and banishes himself from society by his own decree. This is the only moment in the play where Creon actually acts like a true king and not just through mere words. Thus, the king who banishes a woman for her “sins” is obliged to pass the same judgment on himself when he realizes his faults. The final destruction of both characters is the culmination of their blind belief in their own morals as well as their insistence on impulsive decision-making to uphold their ideals. They are victims of their own errors of judgment.