A comparison between Antigone's Creon and Medea's Jason Both of these two male characters are not main roles. They both fall prey to the actions of a woman, over whom they both initially thought they had complete control. The martyrdom of Antigone and the conflict with the State lead to the destruction of Creon and the double murder and infanticide of Medea lead to his destruction. But how much of this is due to their weakness and how much can we attribute it to a cruel fate? The question is essentially whether a person stronger than Jason or Antigone could have avoided the destruction and whether he would have been crushed by his own internal weakness ("hamartia"). One important thing to clarify is that we are not judging their personality. A despot can be a strong character and a man of high morals can be a weak character. The decisive factor is the rigidity with which they stick to their ideals and the ability to listen to others sensibly. The gods bring about Creon's destruction, acting justly and logically towards the blasphemous actions he committed. Its destruction is largely in his hands, despite the numerous warnings he receives from advisors such as Tiresias ("you have no business with the dead"), Haemon ("I see my father offending justice - wrong") and the Chorus (" could it perhaps be the work of the gods?" "good advice, Creon, accept it now, you must"). We dive into it headlong, ignoring those who advise it. His inability to listen to others is fundamental to his downfall, as we see for example in his reproaches to the Sentinel ("Are you still talking? You talk too much!"). This is a fundamental weakness in his character. His stubbornness, as Tiresias says, "brands you for stupidity." What appears in Creon's eyes as a severe control over...... middle of paper......ennsylvania State University:USAOxford Companion to Classical Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.Segal, Charles Paul. "Sophocles' Praise of Man and the Conflicts of Antigone." In Sophocles: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Thomas Woodard. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966. Sophocles. Antigone. Translated by RC Jebb. The classic Internet archive. no page http://classics.mit.edu/Sophocles/antigone.html"Sophocles" In Literature of the Western World, edited by Brian Wilkie and James Hurt. NewYork: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1984.Woodard, Thomas. Introduction. In Sophocles: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Thomas Woodard. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966. Zissos, professor. Lecture notes on classical myth. July 20, 2001. .