To retract from his own law would mean to accept defeat in his very first political maneuver. So Creon steers his steady course towards the catastrophic decision to have Antigone buried alive in the cave. He makes this rash decision in a fit of rage and on the spur of the moment. He refuses to heed the advice of his son, Haemon, and the warnings of the seer, Tiresias. Creon fears that he would lose face if he retracts his own (unjust) law.
Creon recognizes his error only after Tiresias’ fatal predictions and the Chorus’ subsequent admo ment. At last he yields to the voice of basic humanity and decides to reverse his earlier rigid stance. (This is known as “peripeteia.”) He knows he cannot “fight with destiny,” so he quickly buries Polynices and then hurries to Antigone’s cave. But his decision comes too late.
Creon falls into a state of dire panic in his last moments on stage. His wife, Eurydice, has taken her own life on hearing of Haemon’s death. Thus, Creon is left to brood alone over the tragic consequences of his own fatal decisions. He lives on as an infinitely sadder but wiser man (his “anagnorisis”).