An Analysis of Two Key Passages in Antigone
An Analysis of Two Key Passages in Antigone
During the Nazi occupation of France, Jean Anouilh produced an adaptation of Sophocles’ tragedy, Antigone, as a representation of the struggle between those collaborating with the occupants and those resisting them. While it is possible to read Anouilh’s Antigone as a ‘texte de la Resistance’, it can also be interpreted as an apologia for the Nazis’ severe, authoritarian behavior. The two key passages selected are crucial to the development of the play in that they highlight the clash between ideologies. While Antigone’s speech offers an insight into her idealistic world view, Creon’s dialogue exposes his pragmatic approach to life. This conflict of thought and action epitomizes the conflict then occurring in France. Antigone embodies the French Resistance, while Creon is the avatar of the Vichy government. The following commentary will explore not only the contrasting world views put forth by Anouilh, but also the various literary techniques he makes use of and the importance of the key passages in relation to the play as a whole.
In the cases of both Creon and Antigone, Anouilh signifies the importance of the French war-time existentialist creed of the importance of determining one’s fate based upon one’s view of life. Perhaps the clearest indication of this comes when she tells Creon: “Yes I am ugly. Father was ugly too. But Father became beautiful”[Passage A, line 21]. This refers to Oedipus’s catharsis in Sophocles’s trilogy, whereby he blinded himself and went out onto the roads as a beggar to repent for his unwitting crimes of killing his father and marrying his mother and highlights the need for a choice to be willingly made by an individual to become ‘beautiful’. The use of short, simple sentences to express the transformation seems to simplify or purify the effort necessary for this self-transcendence to take place. Antigone’s tragic fate is foreshadowed, as Anouilh has her identify herself with her doomed
During the Nazi occupation of France, Jean Anouilh produced an adaptation of Sophocles’ tragedy, Antigone, as a representation of the struggle between those collaborating with the occupants and those resisting them. While it is possible to read Anouilh’s Antigone as a ‘texte de la Resistance’, it can also be interpreted as an apologia for the Nazis’ severe, authoritarian behavior. The two key passages selected are crucial to the development of the play in that they highlight the clash between ideologies. While Antigone’s speech offers an insight into her idealistic world view, Creon’s dialogue exposes his pragmatic approach to life. This conflict of thought and action epitomizes the conflict then occurring in France. Antigone embodies the French Resistance, while Creon is the avatar of the Vichy government. The following commentary will explore not only the contrasting world views put forth by Anouilh, but also the various literary techniques he makes use of and the importance of the key passages in relation to the play as a whole.
In the cases of both Creon and Antigone, Anouilh signifies the importance of the French war-time existentialist creed of the importance of determining one’s fate based upon one’s view of life. Perhaps the clearest indication of this comes when she tells Creon: “Yes I am ugly. Father was ugly too. But Father became beautiful”[Passage A, line 21]. This refers to Oedipus’s catharsis in Sophocles’s trilogy, whereby he blinded himself and went out onto the roads as a beggar to repent for his unwitting crimes of killing his father and marrying his mother and highlights the need for a choice to be willingly made by an individual to become ‘beautiful’. The use of short, simple sentences to express the transformation seems to simplify or purify the effort necessary for this self-transcendence to take place. Antigone’s tragic fate is foreshadowed, as Anouilh has her identify herself with her doomed
Bibliography: Antigone, Jean Anouilh, translated by Lewis Galantière, Published by Methuen & Co Ltd, London, 1960 Word count: 1,522 ----------------------- [1] Antigone, Jean Anouilh, translated by Lewis Galantière, Published by Methuen & Co Ltd, London, 1960, p. 58 - 59 [2] Antigone, Jean Anouilh, translated by Lewis Galantière, Published by Methuen & Co Ltd, London, 1960, p. 50 – 51 [3] *Superscript, red numbers on the side are the line numbers of each passage.