Antigone: A Tragedy, But Not an Aristotelian One?

Aristotle, though a huge fan of Sophocles, was apparently not a huge fan of Antigone, which he argued suffered from a "poor plot." For Aristotle, the play's least tragic figure is Haemon, who has the opportunity to become a tragic hero, but does not, when he chooses to walk away rather than challenge his father. Aristotle seemed to struggle with identifying which of the central characters–Antigone, Creon, or Haemon– was the tragic center of the story.

Patricia Lines writes that there is another way to look at the play:

The play strikes us as a fine one–Hegel thought it was the supreme example of tragedy, prompting him to pose a different theory for the form. Hegel sees a dialectical clash between two ideals of justice. A noble and wise Antigone fights for the justice of traditional belief, while a tyrannical Creon fights for a right based on might. Irving Babbitt has suggested a more subtle variation of dialectic theory, hailing Antigone as the "perfect example of the ethical imagination" in contrast to her sister, Ismene, who knows merely "the law of the community." Both Antigone and Ismene are ethical, but Ismene lacks ethical imagination.

In other words, these authors do position the center of the tragedy around Antigone, with her being characterized as a person martyred for her beliefs. It's not Aristotelian, but certainly tragic. Antigone dies because she articulates or even develops a new ethical understanding that her society and king cannot accept. In the clash of ideas, hers is certainly more compelling, but does not overpower the state.